Reich and Gurdjieff

Sexuality and the Evolution of Consciousness

David M. Brahinsky

Copyright 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.

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CONTENTS
Introduction

Part I
Gurdjieffs Conception of the Evolution of Consciousness
Chapter One

Waking Up

Chapter Two

Etherokrilno

Chapter Three

Some Symbols

Chapter Four

Self-Remembering and Self-Observation

Chapter Five

The First and Second Conscious Shocks

Chapter Six

Relativity

Part II
Sex
Chapter One

Gurdjieff on Sex

Chapter Two

Orgastic Potency

Chapter Three
Chapter Four

Armoring
Melting Buffers

Part III
Reichs Discovery of the Prime-Source Biological Life Energy
Chapter One

Explaining the Orgasm Function

Chapter Two

Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy

Chapter Three

Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator

Part IV
The Fundamental Laws of World Creation and World Maintenance
Chapter One

Development of Reichs Theory of Cosmic Superimposition

Chapter Two

The Highest Laws

Part V
The Evolution and Involution of Consciousness
Chapter One

Consciousness and Evolution

Chapter Two

Biopathic Illness

Part VI
The Food of Impressions and the Crystallization of the Higher-Being Bodies
Chapter One

How Impressions Provide Energy

Chapter Two

Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body

Part VII

Sexuality and Evolution

Chapter One

Sex Energy

Chapter Two

Suppression of Sex

Chapter Three

Conclusion

Abbreviations
Selected Bibliography

For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua, whose warm light makes all he
touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.

REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE

EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
D

avid Brahinsky has been a student of the Fourth Way and the work of Wilhelm Reich since the mid-1960s. Akhaldan II,
his school for Fourth Way studies, opened in the early 1970s. He received a PhD in Philosophy in 1976 from the State
University of New York at Binghamton and has been teaching philosophy and comparative religion at various colleges since
1969, currently at Bucks County Community College, in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks goes to Blanche Anderson, without whose help this book would not have seen the light, and to all my
current and former students whose work on themselves, for others, and for the Work helps keep the ever-burning light from
going out. I would also like to thank Jacob Needelman, Arthur Waskow, and Neil Selden who read the manuscript in its early
phases and offered significant commentary.

PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION

Since the initial completion and private distribution of this manuscript a number of books relating to Gurdjieffs teachings
have appeared. None of them, as far as I can tell, deal with the subject of healthy sexuality and the evolution of
consciousness. The only places where this subject is addressed are in Gurdjieffs own writings and in the books where he is
quoted on the subject, and the references tend to be indirect and incomplete. The feedback that Ive gotten from students
who have had access to this manuscript, the only one that addresses the subject directly and relatively completely, has
indicated to me that it should be made widely available to the public, which is the function of this edition.

INTRODUCTION
The main subject of this book is the relationship between sexual health and spiritual evolution. Specifically, the book
focuses on Wilhelm Reichs discoveries regarding sexual health and G. I. Gurdjieffs concept of spiritual evolution. The
thesis is that spiritual evolution, in Gurdjieffs sense, is not possible apart from sexual health as Reich determined it.
Although contemporaries, there is no reason to believe that Reich and Gurdjieff knew each other or of each others work.
Reich was a natural scientist, a student and colleague of Freud who began his career in 1919. He made more discoveries of
a revolutionary nature than seems possible for one man to realize in a lifetime, the most significant achievement being the
discovery of a biological and cosmic energy he called orgone energy.
Beginning in his childhood and continuing throughout his life, Gurdjieff (1880-1949) studied psychology, religion (both
exoteric and esoteric), philosophy, mysticism, and occultism. He came in contact with schools of philosophy and science that
had been, and continue to be, mostly esoteric. In these schools he learned of ideas and principles concerning the nature of
consciousness that are deeply rooted in antiquity, ideas which have been transmitted orally (for the most part) from teacher
to student for thousands of years. He eventually became a transmitter himself through personal contact with students and
through his writings.
Reich and Gurdjieff were giants in their fieldsReich in the area of natural science, Gurdjieff as a teacher of ancient
esoteric ideas. A lifetime could be spent trying to comprehend the work of each without succeeding. In choosing to write of
their work and to show how they are related, I have thus undertaken an impossible taskto explicate their ideas without
disfiguring them beyond recognition. In attempting to do so, however, I hope to accomplish a number of things: to bring to
students of Gurdjieffs ideas and to esotericism in general discoveries that make these ideas more comprehensible and to
thus increase the likelihood of achieving success through work on oneself; to bring to students of Reichs work ideas
connecting his discoveries and theories to ancient knowledge, which I believe are based on real understanding; and to
bring to those with an aim to develop his or herself a perspective anchored in the merger of Reichs discoveries and
Gurdjieffs teachings, which I think would be of great help in fulfilling such an aim.
Gurdjieffs teaching focused on ideas and practices he found necessary for awakening from sleep. Full awakening, for
him, meant development or crystallization of what he called higher-being bodies, spiritual bodies made of finer energymatter than the physical body that can survive its death (although it is not clear whether such bodies are to be understood
literally or merely psychologicallyan interpretation problem that is examined throughout the text). He claimed that healthy
sexuality is a vital part of this process but did not specifically or clearly characterize it.
Reichs early work centered on the nature of psychological health and disease; it was he who discovered the function of
the orgasm in relation to the emotions and the psyche. Reich was not concerned with spiritual development in Gurdjieffs
sense. He did, however, determine the nature of sexual health or orgastic potency and that sexual health is fundamental for
psychological health. Because Gurdjieff claimed that sexual health is vital for spiritual evolution but did not describe sexual
health, and because Reich is the only researcher who has determined its nature, it seems natural to merge them to form an
understanding of the relationship between sexuality and the evolution of consciousness.
Many of the categories Gurdjieff utilized to describe the human organism are psychological in nature and thus have
something in common with the categories of established psychology. Yet he also postulated the existence of a universal
energy-matter that functions as the ground of all of being, including the psyche. Furthermore, he claimed that stimulation of
this energy-matter within the human organism is the fundamental role his method of work plays in placing one in a position
to form a spiritual or higher-being body.
During his psychoanalytical period, Reich also utilized psychological concepts, but after discovering the biological basis
of the psyche, the energy, which he called orgone energy, out of which the psyche and all of being is formed, and after he
determined that the free pulsation and flow of this energy within the person constitutes complete psychological and physical
health, his level of discourse and analysis changed. I hope to show a profound correspondence between the levels of
discourse and understanding in Gurdjieff and Reich, and further to show that Reich discovered, via natural scientific method,
the energy that Gurdjieff postulated to exist.
It appears to me that Reichs discovery grounds and concretizes Gurdjieffs teaching in a way that makes it more
accessible and understandable. It takes it out of the realm of philosophy or mysticism and brings it into the realm in which
Gurdjieff claimed it belongedthat of objective science. At the same time, Gurdjieffs teaching expresses the possibility that
Reichs discoveries have implications regarding spiritual evolution with which Reich was not concerned.
I have presented Gurdjieffs ideas as clearly and concisely as possible, although the complexity and the symbolic and
allegorical manner of their presentation makes clarity a goal not easily achieved. I have attempted to express the depth and
understanding contained in the ideas, but some simplification was necessary, and certain ideas were left out entirely.
Reichs work is also difficult to present, as a number of his students have remarkedhe discovered too much, his theories
are relevant to nearly every area of inquiry, and they are very revolutionary. His research is extensive, and thus only a
condensed summary of some parts of it was possible. This presentation of Gurdjieffs ideas and Reichs theories, therefore,
cannot be taken as anything close to being definitive. Because their work is so profound, no summary, analysis,
interpretation, or criticism can hope to capture their voices or to replace a study of their own writings. It is hoped that this

book will stimulate such a study in individuals who have yet to do so and who consider themselves genuinely interested in
awakening.
For it is my thesis that awakening, in Gurdjieffs sense, requires full capacity of what he called the sexual centersexual
health, in other words. To understand the nature of sexual health, however, I maintain, requires Reich. Gurdjieff did not
explain it, nor has anyone else but Reich.
I cannot prove these assertions, of course, for we do not as yet know how to measure awakening, nor is it easy to
measure sexual health. But there are ways of determining more or less what Reich called orgastic potencyReichs term
for sexual health, which I hope to explain in the text. My own experience working with individuals and groups for the past
forty years has made me a believer, and I feel moved to share those insights with those interested.

PART I
Gurdjieffs Conception of the Evolution of
Consciousness
Such is the nature of man,
that for your first gifthe prostrates himself;
for your secondkisses your hand;
for the thirdfawns;
for the fourthjust nods his head once;
for the fifthbecomes too familiar;
for the sixthinsults you;
and for the seventhsues you because he was not given enough.
G. I. Gurdjieff, Life Is Real Only Then, When I Am

CHAPTER ONE
Waking Up
Sleep

The essence of the teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff is the notion that humanity is asleep but that individual men and women
have the potential and, indeed, the duty, to awaken. For him, humans are unique members of the animal kingdom in that we
are complete cosmoses, three-brained beings made in the image of the Great Megalocosmos, or the universe as a
whole. We are born with the potential to evolve in consciousness, that is to say, psychologically or spiritually, and thus are
capable of reaching a higher level of understanding, which he calls objective reason.1
We are put to sleep, says Gurdjieff, by culture or society. Because of this, and because cultural influences keep us in
sleep, we must work if we wish to awaken; we must struggle against the influences both outside and within us that keep us in
sleep. He implies that if such cultural influences did not prevail, we would awaken naturally, simply via maturation. In
Beelzebubs Tales to His Grandson, the first series of his three-part work All and Everything, he calls the process of
awakening simply by the flow of timethe sacred Antkooanoa process that occurs when everyone in a particular society
comes to understand (in the deepest sense of the word, a sense to be elucidated throughout) the fundamental laws of world
creation and maintenance.2

An Ancient Idea
According to Gurdjieff, his teaching is a modern transmission of an ancient idea, one that can be found (often hidden in
allegory, myth, or symbol) in many ancient teachings, philosophies, and religions. One well-known presentation occurs in
Platos Republic in the section on the Allegory of the Cave.3 Plato, using the voice of Socrates, pictures humanity chained
to a cave wall where all that can be seen or known of reality are shadows thrown upon the wall in front of them by the light of
a fire burning further up the cave. We have been in this cave from childhood, he tells us, chained by the neck and legs so
that we cannot turn around or to the side and so therefore can know nothing of ourselves, of one another, or of reality except
the shadows. He then goes on to define a plan that will free us from the chains and bring us to enlightenment, conceived as
comprehension of the true nature of reality via the Formsthe essence of Truth, Beauty, Justice, Goodness, and so on.
Other traditions transmit such an idea,4 and something similar can even be found in psychoanalysis, where it is believed
that we are, for the most part, unconscious of our true feelings and that through analysis the unconscious can be made
conscious. Great differences prevail in the various belief systems, of course, particularly in terms of the conceptions of the
unconscious, of how to bring the unconscious into the light of consciousness, and the consequences of the process as a
whole.

The Is
Gurdjieff refers to ordinary waking consciousness as waking-sleep, implying by the term that he believes the state we
normally think of as being awake is a much sleepier state of consciousness than we realize.5 In waking-sleep, according to
him, we have no center of consciousness, no single I with which to assimilate and comprehend impressions. Indeed,
human beings embody numerous Is, one of which we are said to be identified with at any or every moment.6
When we are identified with an I, we take one manifestation of ourselves as I while remaining more or less unaware of the
other Is that, at other moments, we take as I. The Is we are not conscious of nevertheless exert a profound influence on our
lives, for although we believe we are the I manifesting at the moment, we unconsciously function out of the entire corpus of
Is. Later, a different I comes to the surface, and we become identified with that oneand this process goes on continuously
throughout our lives as long as we remain oblivious to our true condition.
Each of us in waking-sleep suffers from this condition, according to Gurdjieff, but not to the same extent. There are also
times when we are more awake than usualwhich is to say that there are levels of consciousness within waking-sleep as
well as above (and below) it. The more divided we are, the more we tend to identify with the separate Is as they arise, and
the less they know of one another, the more asleep we are. Generally speaking, however, we think we are unified, we call
ourselves I; an illusion fostered by the fact that we have one name and one body, when in fact, psychologically speaking, we
are divided.

Essence and Personality

For Gurdjieff, the human organism is constituted by two fundamental functions, which he calls essence and
personality. Essence is what we are born with; it functions as the raw material for the entire being.7 Each persons essence
includes the physical body, its genetic endowment, energy, and energy metabolism; the core or inborn capacity for
emotions, sensations, and thoughts; various external influences said to reach us from near and far (such as planetary
vibrations), influences present in the immediate environment at conception, during the fetal stage, and at birth.8
As we grow, our essence is molded by cultural influences. There are, for Gurdjieff, two general directions of growth

possible for essence: it can mature along the lines of its inherent nature and potential, or it can become blocked in its
maturation and form something that works against its inborn potential. Essence would evolve, Gurdjieff implies, in societies
where essential practices and values predominate, such as sincerity, love, truth, compassion, a quest for genuine
knowledge, and so on.
Personality, in contrast to essence, encounters the world like a persona or mask. It functions as the surface or periphery of
the organismits membraneand in this sense serves an integral function. When essential values determine the course of
maturity, essence shows itself through the personality. In this sense, therefore, personality is true, i.e., a direct reflection
and expression of essence. In a fully awakened person, essence and personality form one continuous I, which is to say that
the person is unified. When nonessential practices and values determine the path of maturity, such as egoism, vanity,
arrogance, envy, hate, jealousy, lying, false pride, and so onand Gurdjieff says that for thousands of years, and for
practically every culture this has been the caseessence becomes molded into a false personality in which the many
different and often contradictory Is form at the surface while the I expressive of essence remains buried beneath the crust in
a state of immaturity.
Personality, says Gurdjieff, can vary in strength as well as in the degree of its falseness. He claims that a certain amount
of strength or development of personality is beneficial for one who wishes to work on him or herself (in a way to be defined
as we go along) in that it takes a certain amount of strength to deal with the difficulties inherent in such work, such as the
need for discipline, learning to focus attention, accumulation of material goods and money when necessary, and so on. Yet
strong personalities, he implies, need not be false. In Beelzebubs Tales, he portrays a number of individuals with strong
personalities. Only a few, however, are portrayed as mostly false.

Essence Development and Happiness

When essence and personality do not develop harmoniouslywhen personality is mostly falseGurdjieff says that they
can want very different things. It is essence, for him, that represents a persons true needs. If this is the case, then only when
essence develops is true happiness possible.
With respect to relationships between the sexes, for example, he says that it often happens that people come together
from false personality, marry, and live their entire lives while hating one another in their essences. Essence, he says, knows
what it wants but cant explain it. Personality, when false, and when it is not in contact with essence, makes choices that are
not in accord with essence needs. For this reason, when inharmonious essences mate, there can be no real happiness.9
If Gurdjieff is correct, development of essence at the expense of false personality cannot be ignored without serious
consequences, for it is the basis of genuine happiness. This implies that if we do not fulfill our potential and awaken, we not
only remain ignorant and unevolved, but we can never be truly happywe can never be essentially happy.
The aim of what is called The Work, then, is to dissolve false personality and awaken essence. Essence, on this
account, awakens naturally as the many Is of the false personality dissolve. As false personality melts and essence
awakens and repairs itself, the personality becomes true; it becomes a genuine expression and reflection of the essential
self and leads to real happiness.

An Illustration from Ouspensky

The usefulness for oneself of Gurdjieffs teaching regarding essence and personality can only be determined after long
personal work. Illustrations that indicate the power of Gurdjieffs teaching, however, can be found in writings and in accounts
given by his students. One vivid example that all students of Gurdjieffs teachings are familiar with is given by P. D.
Ouspensky, the most well-known of Gurdjieffs students, who wrote perhaps the best book on Gurdjieffs work, In Search of
the Miraculous.
Ouspensky describes a situation that occurred at a meeting.10 He reports that Gurdjieff put to sleep the false personalities
of two members of a group that he was working with at the time so that their essences were expressed directly (how he did
this is not explained). One of the men, the older, was quite prominent in his community, and in the early part of the meeting
spoke often about many things, expressing strong opinions about everything. The younger man, says Ouspensky, had
appeared somewhat foolish because he had spoken confusedly about seemingly unimportant matters. Ouspensky and the
other members of the group were impressed by the first man, but not by the second.
After Gurdjieff put their false personalities to sleep, however, the situation changed. Ouspensky goes on to say that the
older man, who had been arguing heatedly a moment before, became silent. The younger man made observations about
himself in a clear, concise mannertotally unlike what had been usual for him. Someone asked the older man what he was
thinking about, and his reaction, too, was drastically alteredhe had nothing to say. And, says Ouspensky, the older man
seemed to be thinking of nothing. They asked him about his former opinions, but he didnt remember having any. Finally,
someone asked him what he would really like, and he answered that he would really like some raspberry jam.
Ouspensky implies that the older mans opinions, values, and attitudes resided in his false personality and that when
false personality was removed, the man suddenly had no opinions at all. It seems his essence was immature or childlike,
wanting only raspberry jam. On the other hand, it is suggested the younger man really did know somethingin his essence.
One implication of this illustration is that to the extent that we can realize that our values, opinions, attitudes, and concepts
consist mostly of the tissue paper of false personality, we can no longer view ourselves (and others) as mature individuals.

We come to see us as we really arechildren in adult garb.

The Buffers
How is it that the many Is are not in contact with one another? How is it that we can be so divided and yet think we are
one? To explain this circumstance, Gurdjieff introduces the concept of buffers,11 aspects of the psyche that, metaphorically
speaking, stand between the Is, preventing them from making contact with one another. When I am identified with the I that
says I am a philosopher interested only in the truth,for example, my buffers keep me from feeling the Is in me that lie, the Is
that require praise rather than truthful criticism, the Is that need to feel they know when they really dont, the Is that are
afraid, weak, timid.
Buffers keep us in sleep, and they are reinforced by contemporary culture. To begin the awakening process means to
become aware of them, thereby weakening their power over us. The very nature and function of buffers implies that
awareness of their existence makes them incapable of carrying out their functionwhich is to put us to sleep. When buffers
weaken, however, the Is make contact with one another, and we can no longer be deceived when only one of them
dominates, which is to say we become awake to the fact that we are more than one I.

Higher-Being Bodies
According to Gurdjieff, evolution of awareness can lead to something more than simply becoming more conscious. He
implies that very definite entities can be created when buffers weaken, false personality melts, and essence is stimulated to
its full potential. He teaches that work on oneself via his method can lead to the development or crystallization of what he
calls higher-being bodies,12 actual material or energy bodies that, when fully formed, survive the death of the physical body
and exist off the planetary surface.
He claims that three such bodies are possible for human beings, each representing a finer form of essence as it matures
and evolves. The first of the higher-being bodies he calls the Higher Emotional Body, the second, the Higher Mental
Body, and the third, the Fourth Body, or the soul proper (the first body, per se, is, of course, the physical body). We are
born with the matter out of which a soul can be created, that is, the essence. We are not, however, born with a soul,
according to him, and to become fully conscious, to fulfill our inborn potential, is to crystallize a soul, a body Gurdjieff claims
is constituted by an extremely fine form of energy or matter.13
Because of the allegorical and symbolic nature of Gurdjieffs presentation, however, it is not clear whether he meant that
such bodies should be taken literally or symbolically, i.e., as actual material crystallizations, as psychological states of mind
or consciousness, or as both. In this book I try to show what the implications are for either possibility and that, in the end, the
same work and the same principles are implicated whether the higher-being bodies are seen as literal, as just
psychological, or as both.

Notes
(See page 247 for Abbreviations)
1. BT, pp. 245, 366, 563, 815, 687, 1166-9.
2. Ibid., p. 563.
3. Plato, The Republic, Chapter VII.
4.

The shadows are sometimes referred to as samsara, maya, illusion, the material world, the lower worlds, and
so on. See also John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: The Life Story of a Holy Man of the Ogala Sioux; Joseph Epps
Brown, The Sacred Pipe; Hyemeyohsts Storm, Seven Arrows, for Native American versions. In the Bible the chains are
symbolized by the Exile, freedom by the return to Jerusalem.

5. ISM, pp. 141-3; VFRW, pp. 49.

6. FW, pp. 2-3ff; VFRW, pp. 49, 75; MM, pp. 48ff; ASGT, pp. 158ff; C, pp. 594-5, 606-10, 614-17, and passim.
7. ISM, pp. 161-5.
8. BT, pp. 3ff, pp. 438-9. On essence and personality see MM, pp. 34ff; C, pp. 939ff, 955ff.
9. ISM, p. 524.
10. Ibid., p. 523.
11. Ibid., pp. 154-65, 258; ASGT, pp. 95-7; MM, p. 91; C, pp. 755-60. On false personality see C, pp. 966ff.
12. ISM, pp. 31-2, 40-44, 91-7, 180, 193-7, 255-6.
13. Ibid.

CHAPTER TWO
Etherokrilno
Energy-Matter

Along with his psychological analysis, Gurdjieff utilizes an energetic analysis of reality and of the human organism. The
entire universe, according to him, is a manifestation of a prime-source substance, an energy or energy-matter that in
Beelzebubs Tales he calls etherokrilno.1 Every thing, every cosmic concentrationfor instance, rocks, muscles, tissues,
organs, bones, people, planets, stars, galaxies, and so onare said to consist of concentrations of etherokrilno. Although
material, etherokrilno is also the basis of mind or consciousness. Differences between things are said to be due to
differences in the density of this energy-matter.
Each of the psychological entities or functions Gurdjieff discriminates or identifies, therefore, are forms of etherokrilno at
various energetic densitiessuch entities or functions for example as essence, personality, false personality, the buffers, the
Is. This would also be true for such entities or functions as the higher-being bodies and what Gurdjieff calls our centers or
brains.

The Centers
Gurdjieff identifies three centers or brainsthe physical brain, centered in the spinal column; the emotional brain, located
throughout the trunk of the body in a number of connected concentrations (which apparently refer to the vegetative ganglia
or nerve centers); and the intellectual brain, situated in the cerebral cortex. In Beelzebubs Tales, we are called threebrained beings, and Beelzebub, the protagonist, defines the brains as separate concentrations that function to receive
impressions and express manifestations.2
The brains, for Gurdjieff, are divided into a number of different functions (or parts) that are thought of in terms of higher
and lower functioning. The physical center, emotional center, and intellectual center constitute a kind of lower story, and
the higher emotional and higher intellectual centers an upper story.
The lower centers are lower because they regulate our everyday existence as planetary beings. The higher centers are
higher because they connect us with cosmic truththe higher emotional center by feeling it, the higher intellect by
conceiving it. The higher centers also help to produce the fine energy necessary for crystallization of the higher-being
bodies. The lower centers play their role in this evolutionary task, particularly the sex center, which is considered a part of
the physical center but is said to work with a much finer energy than the rest of the physical center.
The most important thing to remember with regard to the function of the lower centers in spiritual evolution is that,
according to Gurdjieff, for the higher centers to function correctly, the lower centers must be fully functioning or healthy.
When impressions from the higher centers fall on a person who is fully balanced and properly functioning in their lower
centers, they are then capable of assimilating and utilizing the impressions for evolutionary purposes. In others words,
genuine understanding and the higher-being bodies can then evolve.3

The Centers
Higher Intellect
Higher Emotional
Intellectual Center
Intellectual Part
Emotional Part
Physical (Moving) Part (The Formatory Apparatus)
Emotional Center
Intellectual Part
Emotional Part
Physical (Moving) Part
Physical Center
Sex Center
Moving Center

Instinctive Center
Each center and each part utilizes its own form or density of energy and has its own precise function.[1] When each part
functions correctly, that is, when each part functions with its own energy, the organism is said to be in balance.

Levels of Consciousness
All of the functions discussed thus far are intimately related to Gurdjieffs concept of the levels of consciousness. He
distinguishes seven such levels: sleep, waking-sleep, awake, consciousness, self-consciousness, objective consciousness,
and absolute consciousness. In terms of the centers, each of these levels of consciousness is a function of the way the
centers function individually and together. As a person more fully utilizes his or her centers and becomes more balanced in
their usage, he or she can be said to rise on the scale of consciousness. The average person today, according to Gurdjieff,
spends most of his or her waking life in waking-sleep. But as we learn to use our centers more fully and more harmoniously,
we become more and more awake. As we awaken, we transform the energy we use into finer and finer forms, and it is the
finest forms of this energy that is said to be the energetic foundation of the higher-being bodies.4

Waking-Sleep
In waking-sleep we function mainly in the moving parts of the emotional, intellectual, and physical centers; these parts are
the least conscious thus use the denser forms of energy. With respect to the intellect, this is the part that is said to record and
categorize impressions, the so-called formatory apparatus.5 Although this part of the intellect has a natural function, when
we think with it alone, we do not ponder or think with great perspective.
Because in waking-sleep we function in the lower, less conscious or moving part of the emotional center; the kinds of
emotions we feel are what we might call narcissistic, that is, the emotions center on the perspective of I and minefor
example, my lover, my child, my career, my country, my political party, my book. These kinds of emotions, when they
dominate the consciousness of an adult, from Gurdjieffs point of view, are symptomatic of an immature essence. Emotions of
the higher emotional center, on the other hand, are involved with more universal matters such as ecology, planetary
concerns, or, generally, cosmic matters where our I is felt in relation to other cosmic concentrations of a higher scale.
Because we are not in contact with impressions of the higher centers when we are in waking-sleep, however, such
impressions do not play a large part in our lives.
In waking-sleep, furthermore, the sex center is said to function improperly. This means that the sex center utilizes energy
not proper to it, energy that is coarser or denser than it would use when functioning properly. The lower centers are said to
borrow energy from the sex center and thus function with energy improper to them, and likewise the sex center borrows
energy from the other centers. In sum, therefore, for Gurdjieff, we in waking-sleep are incomplete human beings, women
and men rather than Women and Men. Beelzebubs grandson, Hassein, calls us slugs, or poor specimens of the species
known throughout the universe as three-brained beings.6

Etherokrilno, Impressions, and Consciousness

The centers, like everything else in the universe for Gurdjieff, are concentrations of the prime-source substance,
etherokrilno. They function by making contact with the outside world, with forms of etherokrilno outside of themselves (since
everything is a form of it). What results from this contact of organ and world are what Gurdjieff calls impressions. And, like
everything else, impressions, too, are a form of energy-matter. Hence, the model of consciousness Gurdjieff presents is one
in which energy-matter at various densities (the centers) contacts energy-matter at various densities or frequencies in the
surrounding world. This interaction creates impressions (energy-matter at certain frequencies), the function of which we call
consciousness (a range of frequencies of energy-matter) and the accumulation of which we call knowledge or
understanding.
The entire universe and everything in it, in this context, is a form of consciousness, which is to say that everything is more
or less conscious, more or less energetically dense. Amoebas are more conscious than stones, and humans are more
conscious than amoebas. This notion suggests that since essence and its direct manifestation, true personality, are more
conscious (less dense) than false personality and the buffers, the dissolution of false personality and the buffers changes
what is relatively coarse into what is relatively fine or, in the language of alchemy (a favorite idiom of Gurdjieffs), changes
lead into gold.7
Merely having coarse feelings or thoughts does not mean being identified with themthe thoughts themselves do not
necessarily function as an I. They function as I only when we feel or think them with most of what constitutes our attention or
consciousness at the moment. When our attention is spread throughout our centers, when we have a sufficient amount of
energy of various densities, we do not take such feelings or thoughts as Iwe do not become identified with them.
When buffers dissolve or become weaker, the energy that constitutes our attention or consciousness is better able to
move throughout the organism and fill more parts of the centers. When a sufficient amount of energy-consciousness fills
such parts, we awaken in those parts, thus take in more impressions, more third-being or higher food (see below). Gurdjieff
can thus intimate that a completely awake individual is one in whom no buffers exist to block the flow of energy.

Food and Energetic Density

The energy employed by the centers is, of course, obtained from food. Gurdjieffs theory of how food is transformed into
energy, however, expresses a more complete perspective than the theories of modern biochemistry. First of all, unlike the
latter, he defines three different kinds of food, distinguished by their relative energetic density. Physical food, called firstbeing food, is considered the densest of the three; air, or second-being food, is next in the level of density, being finer than
physical food. The least dense food of all, Gurdjieff calls impressions or third-being food.8
There are substances that are denser than first-being food, such as paper, sand, earth, grass, and so on. These
substances are too dense to serve as first-being food for humans but serve as first-being food for those lower on the
evolutionary scale, such as microorganisms, vegetation, insects, lower mammals, and so on, which are perceived as being
lower than humans in terms of level of consciousness. Similarly, Gurdjieffs system suggests that there are substances finer
than the impressions that can be assimilated by humans. Such substances would serve as food for entities higher on the
evolutionary scale.
Energy transformation can be seen in terms of taking in and digesting these foods.9 Gurdjieff envisions this process in the
following way: Physical food enters the organism and is immediately transformed by the digestive system into a form of
energy less dense than the food itself, namely, what he calls chyme. The digestive system continues to work on this
energetic density and transforms it further into what he calls cellular energya form of energy-matter less dense than
chyme.
Before cellular energy can be further transformed, according to Gurdjieff, it must be stimulated by a form of energy-matter
that enters the organism from outside. The stimulus is provided by the second kind of food, namely, air. Air, or second-being
food, mixes with cellular energy, and their interaction produces a finer form of energy-matter, namely, physical energy, a
form of energy utilized by parts of the physical center. Some of this energy is transformed into a finer energy, which Gurdjieff
says is utilized by the intellectual center.
The process of transformation continues, producing ever finer forms of energy, some utilized by the emotional center, and
still finer forms by the higher emotional center and the sex center. Lastly, some of the energy is transformed into the finest
energy produced by the physical body, which can be utilized by the higher intellect.

Impressions as Food
The food of impressions, third-being food according to Gurdjieff, enters the process of food intake and transformation at
the relatively fine energetic level of intellectual energy. Third-being food stimulates the energy already within the organism to
produce the even finer energies used by the emotional center, the sex center, and the higher centers. For Gurdjieff,
impressions are as important to our survival as physical food and air, and, he says, if the organism were somehow deprived
of impressions, it would not survive even for a moment.10
When Gurdjieff speaks of impressions he means, first of all, sense perceptionwhat philosophers sometimes call sensedata, or immediate impressions, such as colors, odors, tastes, sounds, sensations of weight, and so on. Secondly, he
means the way we assimilate such data via our brains or centers and how the centers coordinate all the data, feelings or
emotions via memory, comparison, contrast, and so on. Along with this, Gurdjieff adds the functions he calls selfobservation and self-remembering, which he believes add greatly to the value of impressions.
Speaking generally, we can say that, for Gurdjieff, as we become more awake, more conscious, impressions are
assimilated in such a way that their value as food, their value as producers of energy-matter, increases. For Gurdjieff, this
means they are taken in less mechanicallywe notice them more, we see them in relation to other impressions with
greater understanding, we feel them more deeply, and so on. Working on oneself, for Gurdjieff, functions to make
impressions more conscious. This process is extremely significant, from Gurdjieffs point of view, for, as we shall see, it is the
process that creates the requisite conditions for formation of the higher-being bodies.

Buffers, Centers, and Consciousness

Gurdjieff implies that when centers function properly in people, awakening is a normal thing, a simple process of growing
up. The structure of Beelzebubs Tales is illustrative of this. The book is a long conversation between grandson and grandpa
where the grandpa is educating his grandson so that the boy will have all that is necessary for becoming awake. The
implication is, given the correct third-being food, people will evolve into conscious three-brained beings. Throughout the
book, Beelzebub implies that this is normal, that this is the way every three-brained being evolvesexcept us.
What is wrong with us? Many things, from Beelzebubs perspective, but at this point we can view what is wrong with us
from the perspective of the buffers. We have seen that Gurdjieff understood our awakening in terms of full and harmonious
functioning of our centers and the latter in terms of our ability to transform food or energy-matter into the proper densities for
use by the centers. When the process flows smoothly, with no blocks, we evolve, we awaken, climb the ladder of
consciousness, so to speak. But when the process is blocked, we remain stagnant and do not evolve. And it is the buffers
that can be pointed to as the culprits.
Buffers block the flow of energy within us, thus limiting our capacity to transform energy into the proper densities for use
by the centers. When a sufficient amount of energy of the appropriate density is not available, the centers can work only in
certain parts. But each part of each center functions to take in impressions. Some parts simply take in raw sense impressions
like the visual apparatus, a part of the physical center, that, for example, simply sees the sense image we will call homeless
woman on the street in New York (once we add other impressions to the image from other centers). Other parts of centers

add impressionsperhaps of a more emotional sort, such as parts of the emotional center that feel the suffering of that
homeless woman. Another part might add impressions of a more general kind, such as feeling the significance of
homelessness in an affluent society and so on, an example of the work of the emotional part of the intellectual center. But
when the energy transformation process is blocked by buffers and centers are deprived of energy and do not bring in such
impressions, we function at much lower levels of awareness than we would if there were no buffers and so would not
necessarily have the kind of impressions that help us to truly understand what we are seeing, such as the suffering of the
woman and the heartlessness of a society that allows such things to prevail when material wealth is so abundant.

The Buffers and the Is

Another way to understand this process is in terms of the Is. Let us say there is a man who comes home from work and
finds that his dinner is not ready at the time he is used to. He might inquire as to why, considering what was going on with his
wife and children, or he might not. Let us say he has a tendency to get angry when this happens, however. In the language
of Is, he has an I that automatically becomes angry when his dinner is not ready on time. This I does not stop to ask why. It
does not consider his wife. It does not actually think at all, so to speak, but merely reacts.
In terms of the centers, this man reacts in such a mechanical, automatic fashion because he can react from only a small
part of his total beingin this case, he is centered in the physical part of the emotional center. Dinner not ready, feel anger,
complain angrily. In terms of energy, the person reacts this way because there is only a certain amount of energy at a certain
densityenough for reacting via this part but not enough finer energy for him to respond with more parts of his emotional
center, including parts that could feel the position of his wife, feel compassion for her. In terms of the buffers, the man is not
able to respond with his entire emotional center because his buffers block the flow of energy and the process of energy
transformation that would enable the finer energy to be produced and then used by the emotional part of the emotional
center.
Im sure that most of us can think of numerous examples of such automatic reactions we have seen in others and in
ourselves. The I that feels elated when ones team wins a game; the I that feels depressed when ones team loses; the I that
immediately judges others on the basis of race, sex, age, clothing, the car they drive, and so on. These are all automatic
reactions that, in the light of a more complete understanding or responsiveness, appear ridiculously narrow and foolish. But
we do react in those ways. We actually become these Is, in a way, which is to say, for Gurdjieff, that we identify with them.

Etherokrilno and the Higher-Being Bodies

To complete this section on Gurdjieffs concept of energy-matter, we should at least note that, for him, the notion that
everything that exists is a form of a ubiquitous energy-matter means that the higher-being bodies, like everything else, are
created out of it. We are not born with them, thus they must be created within us from a very fine form of the energy-matter
that we create via our work on ourselves.
Thus the higher-being bodies, taken literally as actual physical/energy bodies or as psychological states that would, of
course, have an energetic prevalence, can be said to represent a maturation of the energy we are born with beyond the
level of consciousness we reach without working on ourselves. The higher-being bodies are like new brains, new centers
that can pick up impressions of an even finer sort than even our higher emotional and higher intellectual centers.

Notes
1. BT, 137, and passim.
2. Ibid., pp. 143, 633, and passim.
3. For a more comprehensive description see ISM, passim.
4. ISM, p. 55; ASGT, pp. 22ff; C, pp. 693, 910.
5.

Ibid., pp. 26, 64-8, 71-3, 117, 141-2; BT, pp. 373-4, 383-5, 817. See also VFRW, p. 129 for a discussion of the centers;
MM, pp. 18ff. for a discussion of the levels of consciousness; and C, passim.

6. FW, pp. 63, 66, 299-300, 327-9; VFRW, pp. 128-35.

7. BT, pp. 79-80.
8. MM, pp. 78ff.
9. ISM, pp. 90, 170-82, and passim.
10. Ibid., pp. 182ff.

CHAPTER THREE
Some Symbols
In speaking of the Enneagram, G. said that it formulated the whole of the teaching and that the more a man could read its meanings, the more deeply he understood the
Work.1

The Symbol of Hydrogens

urdjieff illustrates the relationship between the centers and the various energetic densities they utilize via a number of
symbols, e.g., the Symbol of Hydrogens, where energetic density is explained in terms of specific numerical relations. As
applied to the organisms energy metabolism, the symbol is based on the (above mentioned) ideas that energy-matter
enters the organism as food and that food prevails at different energetic densities.
Via the Symbol of Hydrogens, first-being food is represented, in terms of energetic density, by the hydrogen number H768. The H represents the fact that the food is a form of energy-matter, called hydrogen; the number 768 represents the
relative density of this food as compared with other kinds of food and other kinds of substances (other concentrations of
energy-matter). We can leave out the H and represent the various densities simply by use of the numbers, as long as we
remember that the numbers represent energetic densities.2
Air, or second-being food, is represented by the number 192, meaning that it is defined as a quarter the density of firstbeing food, thus vibrates four times as fast, so to speak, as first-being food. Impressions, or third-being food, are represented
by the number 48, meaning that impressions are conceived of as vibrating at a rate that is four times as fast as air and
sixteen times as fast as first-being food.
Energy-matter even finer or faster in vibration than third-being food, which when taken in as food can be called fourthbeing food, is represented at energetic density 12. This energy is said to be utilized by the sex center when it works properly
and by the higher emotional center. Energy even finer enters via the higher intellectual center, at energetic density 6.
The process of food-energy intake and digestion or transformation is pictured thusly: Parts of the physical center (the
digestive system) take in first-being food at energetic density 768, digest it, and transform it to energy 384, called chyme,
liquid or partially broken down first-being food. The digestive system continues to work on this food until it becomes
energetic density 192, called cellular energy. At this point in the process of food-energy intake and transformation,
according to Gurdjieff, another part of the physical center, the respiratory system, eats or takes in second-being food or air
at energetic density 192. The 192 of air meets and merges with the 192 from digestion of first-being food (cellular energy),
and the merger produces the required impetus for energy 192 to pass on and become energy 96, a form of energy said to be
used by parts of the physical center in its functioning.
Some of energy 96 is used up by the physical center, and some is further transformed to energetic density 48, the energy
that the intellectual center uses. We are now in the realm of psychology, of what we speak of as the mind. The food of
impressions, third-being food, at energetic density 48, enters the organism and merges with the energy 48 already within the
organism. The merger serves as an impetus to stimulate energy 48 to become energy 24, the energy of the emotional center
and other parts of the physical center; then energy 12, the energy of the sex center and the higher emotional center; and
finally, energy 6, the energy of the higher intellectual center. This completes the process of taking in food and producing
energy for use by the organism.

Conscious Impressions
As mentioned, for Gurdjieff, individuals take in food-energy with more or less consciousness, and the more consciously
we eat, the greater the effect the food has on production of the finer energies used by the psychic centers, the emotional
center, the sensory apparatus, the thinking center, the sex center, and the two higher centers. With respect to third-being
food or impressions, this means that the more consciously we take them in, the more deeply we feel emotions, the better we
think, the more correctly the sex center works, and the better the higher centers function.
Thus when third-being food is taken in more consciously, on this theory, more energy is taken in, and the centers have
more energy with which to work. When we think, therefore, we can do so with more than just the moving part, the formatory
apparatus; when we feel, we can feel with the higher parts of the emotional center as well as with the more mechanical
moving part; our sensations become more vivid; sexual sensations are more total and felt more deeply; and we can be
aware of the impressions taken in by the higher centers.
Differences in levels of consciousness can thus be considered a function of variations in how consciously we take in
third-being food or impressions. Buffers can be conceived of as apparatus that inhibit taking in third-being food with full
attentiveness, false personality as a manifestation of the fact that we take in third-being food without a great deal of
awareness. To melt personality and expand essence would be to bring more sensitive (finer) energy into operation for use
by the psychological centers so that they can take in third-being food or impressions with greater awareness.

Food

First-being food

H-768

Chyme

H-384

Cellular energy

H-192

Air

Physical energy (I)

**

Thoughts

**

Impressions

H-192
H-96
H-48

Third-being food

H-48

****

Emotions, Physical energy (II)

H-24

****

Sex energy, Higher Emotional energy

H-12

****

Higher Impressions (I)

*****

Second-being food

Fourth-being food

H-12
H-6

Higher Intellectual energy

Physical Center

**

Lower Intellect

***

Lower Emotions

****

Higher Emotional Center, Sex Center

****

Higher Intellectual Center

The Symbol of Hydrogens in Relation to Food as Energy
Figure 2

The Symbol of the Octave

These ideas can be further explored by combining what Gurdjieff calls the Symbol of the Octave with the Symbol of the
Hydrogens.3 The Symbol of the Octave, according to Gurdjieff, is one way to picture or portray what he refers to as the Law of
Seven, the law that represents the functioning of all processes. Along with the Law of Three and the One Law of the Absolute
(discussed below), the Law of Seven is said to be universal with respect to all cosmic concentrations.4 The Law of Seven,
says Gurdjieff, has been represented in different ways by various traditions. Forms of it can be found, for example, in the
Kaballah, Gnostic writings, the writings of certain alchemists, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and other schools of Chinese
philosophy, as well as in certain Western writers such as Plato and Plotinus.
Gurdjieff presents the Law of the Octave in terms of the major scale of Western musical notation, viz, as the sequence DO,
RE, MI, semitone, FA, SOL, LA, SI, semitone, DO . . . The semitones are called intervals by Gurdjieff and represent places in
the octave where resistance is said to occur, where the octave is said to lose the momentum generated by the do and
would run down if not stimulated by what is called a shock. Examples of how this functions are given from time to time
throughout the remainder of this book.

DO

RE
MI semitoneshock point
FA
SOL
LA
SI semitoneintervalshock point
DO

The Symbol of the Octave

Figure 3

Combining the Symbol of the Octave

and the Symbol of Hydrogens

First-Being Food

DO-768

Chyme

RE-384

Cellular Energy

MI-192

Second-Being Food (air)

Interval, Shock

DO-192

Physical Energy (I)

FA-96

RE-96

Thoughts

SOL-48

MI-48

Third-Being Food (impressions)

Interval, Shock

DO-48

Emotions, Physical Energy (II)

LA-24

FA-24

RE-24

Sex Energy, Higher Emotional Energy

SI-12

SOL-12

MI-12

Fourth-Being Food (higher impressions)

Interval, Shock

DO-12

Higher Intellectual Energy

LA-6

FA-6

RE-6

Combining the Symbol of the Hydrogens with the

Symbol of the Octave in Relation to
Food Intake and Transformation
Figure 4
The Symbol of Hydrogens is combined with that of the octave as they pertain to the process of food intake and
transformation as follows: First-being food, symbolized at relative energetic density 768, is given the note DO. Chyme, or
transformed first-being food, at energetic density 384 is given the note RE. Cellular energy, further transformed first-being
food, at energetic density 192 is given the note MI. The octave of first-being food thus begins as follows: DO-768, RE-384,
MI-192. Once it reaches the note MI, it has reached its first interval or resistance point.
At this point in the process as represented by the symbol, air, or second-being food, enters. Like DO-768, the note that
represents the entrance of first-being food, the entrance of air is represented by the note DO, since, on this symbol,
whenever food or energy enters from outside the organism, a new octave is said to begin. Air is symbolized as being at
energetic density 192, and so its entrance is represented by the note DO-192. We saw that, for Gurdjieff, air acts as a
stimulus to cellular energy (192), that it merges with it to produce the next level of energy, energy 96. This merger is thus a
merger of energy 192 within the organism (cellular energy) with energy 192 entering from without (air).
The merger occurs at the place in the octave of first-being food where its first interval falls, indicating that air, or secondbeing food, serves as the shock needed to move the octave of first-being food past the interval so that it can produce energy
96. When the shock is givenwhen, in other words, we breatheair enters as DO-192 and merges with MI-192 from the
first-being food octave. This merger produces a child, energy 96, symbolized by two notes, one from the octave of firstbeing food, FA-96, and one from the octave of air, RE-96. This child or result of the merger of air and cellular energy
evolves into energy 48, represented by the notes SOL-48 from the octave of first-being food and MI-48 from the octave of air.
Further evolution of the energy, however, can occur without further assistance only with respect to the octave of first-being
food since the octave of air has reached its first interval (its MI-FA interval) or resistance point through which, according to
the Symbol of the Octave, it cannot pass without being further stimulated or shocked. According to the Symbol of the Octave,
the octave of first-being food can continue through its notes LA and SI, where it would then reach its second interval or
resistance point. In terms of energy, the notes represent LA-24 and SI-12.
The air octave is said to be shocked or stimulated past its first resistance point by the entrance of third-being food, the
food of impressions, represented on this symbol as DO-48. The food of impressions is represented by the note DO because,
like DO-768 and DO-192, it represents the entrance of new food-energy from outside the organism, thus the beginning of a
new octave. DO-48 merges with energy 48 already present within the organism, and the merger produces more energy for
the psychological functions. Besides energy 48 for the thinking center as DO-48, the merger produces more energy 24 for
the emotions and parts of the physical center as RE-24 from the impressions octave and FA-24 from the air octave, and more
energy 12 for the sex center and the higher emotional center as MI-12 from the impressions octave and SOL-12 from the air
octave.

The merger of DO-48 with the energy 48 present within the organism from the first two octaves also produces the note LA6 from the air octave, energy for the higher intellect, and theoretically SI-3 from the air octave. No more can come from the
impressions octave after the note MI-12 without a shock since, at this point, it has reached its first interval. The required
shock in this place (discussed below) is what is called the Second Conscious Shock.5
This rendition of the combination of the Symbol of Hydrogens with the Symbol of the Octave, though apparently quite
complex and perhaps confusing for new readers, is a simplified rendition of what can be pieced together from Gurdjieffs
own writings and those of some of his students and followers. It expresses the idea that intake of each of the three foods
functions to fill an interval, to provide a shock that allows an octave (or a process) to continue past the point where, based on
its own momentummomentum generated by its beginning, its DOit would run down. First-being food fills the interval
between SI of the octave begun prior to its entrance, one that represents formation of the digestive system itself, and DO of
the food octave. Second-being food fills the first interval of the food octave, and third-being food the first interval of the air
octave.
But impressions, or third-being food, for Gurdjieff, as mentioned, can be taken in more or less consciously. The more
consciously impressions are taken in, the greater the effect they have as a shock in producing the psychological energies.
The shock of third-being food, then, can be more or less powerful (which is also true for the two other foods: healthy versus
unhealthy food, polluted versus unpolluted air, etc.). When impressions are taken in mechanically and not consciously, the
shock of third-being food is not as vivid, and in fact, says Gurdjieff, it does not function as a genuine shock. Only when
impressions are taken in consciously, for him, do they actually function as a shock, as a genuine DO. He calls this shock the
First Conscious Shock.6

The Enneagram
The Symbol of the Octave and that of Hydrogens are combined with another symbol, the symbol of the Enneagram,7 and
via this combination, Gurdjieff further develops these ideas. Aspects of the symbol of the Enneagram, according to Gurdjieff,
have been transmitted via various esoteric traditions, but the entire symbol and its meaning are said by him to have been
understood and transmitted by only a certain school with roots deep in the past, the identity of which, as far as I know, he did
not make public.8 When used to illustrate the process of food intake and transformation, the Enneagram becomes the Food
Enneagram. Via use of this symbol, a new perspective emerges.
The Enneagram is represented as a circle divided into nine equal parts. Nine points are identified via numbers, with the
number 9 placed at the top of the circle and the numbers 1-8 following clockwise around the perimeter. Points 9, 3, and 6 fall
around the circle in such a way that an equilateral triangle can be drawn within the circle, connecting them. The numbers 1,
2, 4, 5, 7, and 8 are connected by a series of lines that form a unique pattern. The logic of this pattern is based on division of
the number 7 by any number, which always form the sequence 1-4-2-8-5-7-1-4 . . . 9 These two elements, the connection of
the numbers 9, 3, and 6 via the triangle and the pattern based on the number 7, are used in the symbol to combine the Law
of Three and the Law of Seven. An analysis of all the ramifications of the Enneagram is beyond the scope of this book (not
that I could provide them even if I wanted to!); thus I will focus on certain aspects of how the symbol pertains to the process of
food intake and energy transformation.

The Enneagram
Figure 5

The Food Enneagram

The process of food intake and energy transformation is plotted on the Food Enneagram in the following way: DO-768,
representing the entrance of first-being food, is plotted at place 9. The following note, RE-384, is plotted at place 1, and the
note MI-192 of this octave at place 2. The first interval of the octave is plotted at place 3, the note FA-96 at place 4, SOL-48 at
place 5, LA-24 at place 7 (place 6 is mysteriously skippedsee below), and SI-12 at place 8. The second interval of this
octave, its SI-DO interval, falls at place 9 of what would be a second Enneagram (which would be best represented, as far as
I can tell, in three-dimensional form as rising spiral-like from the first Enneagram).
Place 3 represents the first interval of this octave as well as the place where second-being food or air enters the organism
as the note DO-192. The second note of the air octave, RE-96, is plotted at place 4, and the third note, MI-48, at place 5. Its
first interval falls at place 6, its note FA-24 at place 7, SOL-12 at place 8, LA-6 at place 1 of the second Enneagram (it
mysteriously skips place 9 of the second Enneagram), and SI-3 at place 2 of the second Enneagram. Its second interval, its
SI-DO interval, falls at place 3 of the second Enneagram.
Place 6 represents the first interval of the air octave as well as the place where third-being food, the food of impressions,
enters the organism as DO-48. Its second note, RE-24, is plotted at place 7, its third note, MI-12, at place 8. Its first interval is
plotted at place 9 of the second Enneagram, and its fourth note, FA-6, is plotted at place 1 of the second Enneagram. Its fifth
note, SOL-3, is plotted at place 2 of the second Enneagram, its sixth, LA-1, at place 4 (it mysteriously skips place 3 of the
second Enneagram), and its seventh note, SI-0, at place 5 of the second Enneagram. Its second interval falls at place 6 of
the second Enneagram.
Places 3, 6, and 9the places connected by the inner trianglerepresent intervals or shock points, places where food
enters from without. Place 9 of the first Enneagram is where the shock of first-being food occurs, place 3 where the shock of
air occurs. Place 6 represents the shock of impressions and is called the First Conscious Shock, when the impressions are
taken in consciously (see below). Place 9 of the second Enneagram represents the place where the shock of higher
emotional impressions (fourth-being food) enters, the shock called the Second Conscious Shock (see below). Place 3 of
the second Enneagram represents the place where the shock of higher intellectual impressions enters, the shock that can
be called the Third Conscious Shock.

Food Enneagram
Plus Relative Energetic Densities
Figure 6

Usually called chyme.

**

Certain parts of the physical center are said to use energy 96; other parts, energy 24.

The Mysterious Intervals

There is an anomalous aspect to the presentation of the process of food intake and transformation as it is presented on
the Food Enneagram that does not show itself when pictured via the Symbol of the Octave and the Symbol of Hydrogens
alone. It is that the octaves skip places on the Enneagram that, according to the other symbols, do not represent interval
points. The octave of first-being food begun as DO-768, for example, skips places 3 and 6. That it skips place 3 is explained,
in terms of the Law of the Octave as Gurdjieff represents it, by the fact that place 3 represents the first interval of the octave,
the place where air enters as this octaves first proper shock. But it also skips place 6, and place 6 falls between its notes
SOL and LA, not between its note SI and DO, the place on the Symbol of the Octave where its proper second interval
supposedly falls. The same out-of-place plotting occurs with the other two octaves: the air octave mysteriously skips place
9 of the second Enneagram, a place where its second interval should not occur, and the impressions octave skips place 3 of
the second Enneagram, a place where its second interval should not occur.

Food Octave

Air Octave

Impressions Octave

DO
RE
MI
interval

DO

FA

RE

SOL

MI

mysterious interval

interval

DO

LA

FA

RE

SI

SOL

MI

interval

mysterious interval

interval

LA

FA

SI

SOL

interval

mysterious interval
LA
SI
interval

The Mysterious Intervals

Figure 7

Given that the symbol qua symbol is intended to provide information of a sort that transcends words or the basic language
of the intellect, which, to put it another way, enters via the higher centers, can we, by use of words, explain this anomaly? We
can try, although in so doing we may lose some of the meaning of the symbol, meaning that can only be felt or higher-felt
and higher-thought. If we keep this in mind, though, our crime is lessened.
The key to understanding this anomaly lies in the following: each of the mysterious intervals functions as a correct
interval for a higher octave. Place 6, for example, functions as the correct MI-FA interval of the air octave while it functions as
the mysterious interval of the food octave. To try and fathom the meaning of the mystery, let us review what, symbolically
speaking, happens at this place.
Energy 48, the food of impressions, enters the organism here (place 6) and merges with energy 48 already present

within. As such it functions to shock the air octave to produce energy 24 (as the fourth note of the air octave, FA-24). But
energy 48 is also produced from the food octave, as the note SOL-48. This seems to imply that the entering energy 48, the
entering impressions, merges with both notes, both MI-48 from the air octave and SOL-48 from the food octave, indicating
that neither octave can pass this place without accepting the shock of impressions-48. The enigma, however, is that the note
SOL-48 is supposedly able to pass on to its notes LA-24 and SI-12 without having to be shocked along its way, simply by the
momentum generated by the shock that occurs at its MI-FA interval (DO-192).
In other words, it appeared that merely by eating and breathing we produce energy for the psychological functions,
energy 24 and 12, but this mysterious plotting informs us that this is not the case, that in order to produce energy for the
psychological functions, we must take in impressions. Thus, as we study the symbol more deeply, we realize that we need
impressions to have any energy to think with at all. This is revealed when we realize that energy is produced at shock points
only when mergers occur between food-energy entering from outside the organism and energy present within.
This is most clearly seen on the Food Enneagram in the case of air, for if no energy 192 is present from the digestion of
first-being foodif no cellular energy is presentincoming air has nothing to merge with and could not be assimilated,
could not become the energy of second-being food, which is to say that it would not function as food. The same is true in the
case of first-being food. If no energy 768 is present for the incoming first-being food to merge withno stomach, for example
the taking of first-being food would not lead to production of any energy. Thus the essence of the mystery has to do with
merger, with fusion of energy.
A significant fact represented by the enigma is thus the requirement of merger or fusion of energy. Energy 48 entering
from without produces no energy for thought (48), emotions (24), sexuality (12), and higher emotions (12) until or unless it
merges with energy 48 already present within the organism. This expresses what Gurdjieff takes to be a fundamental truth:
that impressions, or third-being food, is necessary for life, just as necessary as firstand second-being food. Gurdjieff, as
mentioned, claims that we can live for weeks without first-being food, or if we count liquids, for days (depending on external
conditions); that we can live without air for one or two minutes; but that we cannot live for a moment without impressions.10
On his concept of food, if somehowalthough it is hard to imagine how (and isnt this the point?)all impressions (internal
as well as external) were cut off even for a moment, for a twinkling of an eye, we would die.

The Symbols and Formatory Thinking

The concept of the mysterious intervals also tells us something about how to understand the Law of Seven as it is
presented in the form of the Octave. When we first learn about the Law of Seven and try to apply it to our everyday lives, we
typically begin to look for the intervals in the various processes that we are involved in every day, the places in processes
where energy begins to run down and where new energy is needed to keep them going in the direction they had started out
in, in according with our aims. As we do this, however, we often soon realize how difficult and even ridiculous this is.
Let us say that I have taken up yoga. My aim is to get healthier. So when do I reach the first interval, the first place that the
energy begins to run down? When have I hit the third note? Is it the third week, the third month? But we soon should realize
notes are not such obvious things, and neither are intervals. The only obvious thing is that processes run out of energy
and require stimulation at certain points, but precisely where is always a question. This means that should we wish to
provide such stimulation, we must pay close attention to the processes so that we can be aware when shocks are required.
The essential message of the Law of Seven, then, is not that shocks always occur after the third and fourth and seventh and
eighth notes, but that processes require shocks to continue in the direction they began, and that if such shocks are not given,
octaves or processes do not reach completion but turn and die. (In the case of my desire to learn Yoga, we can say the place
or time of the first interval will probably be when I feel myself getting lazy and dont feel like continuing with the practice.)
Taking the Law of Seven literally is taking it formatorily, thinking about it mechanically, or only with the moving part of the
intellect. Should we think about it in this way, we could easily wonder why it is considered so important to Gurdjieff. In
abstraction, the Law of Seven may not be interesting. An intellectual type might find it interesting in that it represents a
universal law, but others might see nothing in it of any relevance. When applied to octaves of work on oneself, however, it
takes on greater significance than when viewed in abstraction, for it means that octaves of work practice can be started, but if
they are not stimulated by conscious awareness as to when they begin to run down, they turn, and we end up going around
in circles instead of actually evolving.11
Another fact that shows that taking the Law of Seven literally represents formatory or mechanical thinking is seen when
we realize that it is presented in the form of the major scale in Western musical notation where intervals or semitones occur
between the third and fourth and the seventh and eighth notes. There are also scales in Western musical notation where
semitones occur between other notes (various minor scales, for example) and scales in other musical notations where
intervals occur in different places or where no semitones prevail at all (in Indian music, for instance).

Notes
1. C, p. 379.
2.

In certain presentations of the symbol, Gurdjieff uses four lettersH, C, N, and Orepresenting hydrogen, carbon,
nitrogen, and oxygen to illustrate the different functions of energy with respect to energy entering from outside the
organism and energy already present within, though much of the essential information can be transmitted without use of
the letters.

3. ISM, pp. 171ff; ASGT, pp. 111, 134-41, 156-67.

4. ISM, pp. 182ff.
5. BT, pp. 755ff.
6. FW, pp. 218-22, 291.
7 . ISM, pp. 294-5, 376-8; C, pp. 379ff; ASGT, pp. 173ff. See also J. G. Bennett, The Enneagram (Sherborne, England:
Coombe Springs Press, 1974); and Irmis B. Popoff, The Enneagram of the Man of Unity (New York: Weiser, 1978).
8. ISM, pp. 278ff.
9. C, pp. 379-435.
10. ISM, pp. 189, 251.
11. Ibid., pp. 125ff.

CHAPTER FOUR
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
You begin with self-observationthat is the normal wayand through self-observation you realize that you do not remember yourself.1

Self-Remembering

When we sustain awareness of incoming impressions as they enterwhen we focus our attention on whatever we
perceive at a particular momentwe take in impressions consciously. However, there is another dimension to taking in
impressions consciously that Gurdjieff calls self-remembering, and it is the concept or practice of self-remembering that he
claims separates his system from the systems of conventional psychology.
Generally speaking, self-remembering is the state of being aware of oneself as one takes in impressions from the world.2
Gurdjieff claims that we in waking-sleep, no matter how attentively we may be focusing on the world, rarely, if ever,
remember ourselves while taking in impressions; and to learn to do so, he says, requires a great deal of practice.
Impressions entering while we are in a state of self-remembering have a higher energetic quality than impressions that enter
during waking-sleep. Self-remembering, in fact, is said to be the process by which the value of third-being food is increased
to such an extent that the energy needed for full use of the centers is produced.
Gurdjieff refers to the stimulation produced when we remember ourselves as the First Conscious Shock.3 When this
shock is triggered, we gain sufficient energy so that we have more vivid sensory impressions than otherwise, more deeply
felt emotions, more intense sexual impressions of the right kind (in connection with the proper working of the sex center),
more vivid impressions via the higher emotional center, and more energy for use by the higher intellect. And, for Gurdjieff, it
is due to the proper working of these centers that formation of the first higher-being body, and later, the formation of the other
higher-being bodies, can occur.
What is self-remembering, this apparently mighty function that changes everything, this first of the alchemical functions
that in a trice, Lifes leaden metal into Gold transmute? 4 Self-remembering, says Ouspensky, is the attempt to be aware of
oneself as a whole.5 It is the feeling of Iof ones own person as a whole. It means feeling and knowingor understanding,
in the full sense of the wordwho and what I am, which is to say that it is self-awareness in the deepest sense.
As with consciousness in general, however, for Gurdjieff, there is not one state or experience of self-remembering but
levels of it. One can, in other words, go more and more deeply into it, become more and more aware of who one is and that
one is. The First Conscious Shock, in other words, can be triggered to a greater or lesser extent; thus greater or lesser
amounts of the finer energies can be produced. The distinction between mechanical and conscious impressions, therefore,
is not sharply drawn but is a matter of degree. Still, it is apparently only when self-remembering deepens to fullness that a
sufficient amount of the finer energies needed for crystallization of the higher-being bodies can be produced.

Knowledge
To attempt self-remembering, to try and be aware of oneself as a whole while taking in impressions from the world, is not
necessarily to succeed, i.e., it is not necessarily equivalent to remembering oneself as one truly is. Complete self-awareness
thus depends not only on experiencing oneself as present, but also on knowledge of who one is, which is to say that it
depends, for Gurdjieff, on knowledge as well as on being.6
To know who one is implies many things, including knowing what it means to be a human being in general. And to know
this necessitates knowing the nature of the universe. Gurdjieff refers to this kind of knowledge as an understanding of the
laws of world creation and world maintenance, and he illustrates the need for it in Beelzebubs Tales when he portrays
Beelzebub explaining such laws to his grandson so that the boy can have the requisite knowledge to serve as a basis for his
personal work on himself.7 In that, as seems likely, the grandson represents the youthful but eager essence of humans who
are sincerely interested in their own evolution, this advice of Beelzebub can be viewed as being given directly to us. If we
take this advice seriously, we will attempt to gain as much knowledge as we can, from every source possible, including, of
course, the theories transmitted to us by Gurdjieff himself (but not Gurdjieffs ideas alonewhich is to say that it is not as it is
often seen in strictly orthodox religion where knowledge can mean, primarily or even solely, knowledge of the sacred
texts).

Self-Observation
The being side of self-remembering has to do with the practice of feeling ourselves as a whole as we take in impressions
of the world. But, says Gurdjieff, even if we study the sciences, even if we study the laws of the universe that he transmits in
his writings, we rarely, if ever, remember ourselves. And we do not know that we do not remember ourselves. The first step
toward learning how to practice self-remembering, therefore, is to come to the realization that we do not remember
ourselves. How can we come to such awareness? We can do so, he says, by developing the practice of consistently,
objectively, or impartially observing ourselves.8

At first glance, self-observation may not appear as mysterious as self-remembering. We do not need any great knowledge
to begin the practice of self-observation. All we need do is focus some of our attention on what is going on within us while we
take in impressions from without. On the other hand, knowledge, or a theoretical framework, is necessary if we ever wish to
come to understand what we observe.
What is required for self-observation to begin, according to Gurdjieff, is a dividing of attention between the impressions
entering from outside and the responses of our own organism.9 We can attempt this anywhere, anytime. Even the most
mundane situation will do. I am standing in line at the supermarket. I observe the people in front of me, those behind me, the
children sitting in the wagons, one crying, another staring up at me. The mother of the crying child snaps at her to shut her
up. The woman behind the counter looks bored but is intent on efficiency. The florescent lighting makes all these stand out
no shadows, no nuances. Then there are pictures of half-naked women on the magazines, stacks of cigarettes, anxious
faces pushing carts, looking for the shortest line.
Meanwhile Im observing myself. I, too, am anxious. I have appointments. Im hungry and want to go home. The woman in
front has a pile of coupons and pulls out her credit cardmore time for me to wait. My chest is tight. Im not breathing. But the
childs face interests me. I feel loving toward him and deep sadness for the child who cries, rage toward the mother who
snaps at her insensitively, a slight sensation of sexual arousal from the pictures on the magazines. And I see that Im
observing myselfremembering who I am, where I am, on planet Earth, in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, that I
am mortal and will die . . . All these and so much moreinside, outsideimpressions all and each informing the others,
creating a synthesis of awareness that is hard to name except to say, this is I.
In waking-sleep, our attention is focused on what fascinates us in the world. The practice of self-observation requires us
to pay attention as well to the I that we are identified with at the moment or the center out of which we are responding. As we
become more able to do this, we begin to form a unique structure within us. We form what Gurdjieff calls the observing I, an
I that can see what is happening within while we take in impressions from outside.
Gurdjieff says that we rarely practice objective self-observation. This is not to say that we do not normally notice ourselves
or sense our separateness with greater intensity than dogs, rocks, or worms. Because we automatically notice ourselves, we
think we observe ourselves. For Gurdjieff, however, the kind of awareness we usually have of ourselves is a pale imitation of
what is meant by self-observation. By this he means a conscious, directed study of ones Is and the manifestations of the
centers. To observe oneself in this sense is to be like a specimen to the observing I as scientist.

Self-Observation and Impressions

Self-observation, like self-remembering, increases the quantity and quality of impressions by providing information
regarding our own responses along with impressions of the world outside. Such information increases the liveliness and
significance of the external impressions in that our awareness of our own responses provides data relevant to the
significance and function of the external impressions. This is because part of the meaning of what happens outside of us
involves how we respond to it. In other words, the more deeply aware we are of our own reactions, the more deeply we can
understand what it is we are reacting to.
Many of us have had encounters with people who we later discovered had ulterior motives not apparent on the surface.
Perhaps we picked up impressions of this with our emotional center, but if we were not attentive to our emotional response,
we would not have been conscious of the impressions; they would have remained in the realm of the subliminal, at least as
far as our own awareness was concerned. How often do we complain that we were fooled, conned, by another? It may be
true that the person was disingenuous, but if we were more attentive to all of the impressions produced during the meeting,
including our own subtle inner responses, we might not be taken in as easily.
Another aspect of the value of self-observation concerns what it is about life that is truly important. A professor and a
student may be engaged in a philosophical discussion. In paying attention to the logic of the discussion, they take in certain
impressions. When they are attentive to their own inner responses (sensations, feelings, thoughts) to the discussion, and to
one another, impressions are added. Only when they pay attention to these impressions, however, do they gain data
relevant to knowledge of themselves. But what is more important, following the logic of an argument or coming to understand
oneself? What is actually happening in the situation? Is it a matter of two disembodied minds disputing a point of logic, or is it
more than that? Is it not a case of two living organisms with different experiences, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and
understandings, engaging in a dialogue, striving to achieve some comprehension of truth?
So much of what goes on between people occurs subliminally; so little is communicated openly. We talk and smile, have
dinner together, discuss business and politics, celebrate holidays, and all the while other things are going on inside of us
where no one else can enter and where we do not enter with full consciousness either.
We walk into a party or reception, smile at people we know, head for the bar, order a drink from the bartender, stand
around waiting for someone we know that we can talk toor if we cannot find someone like that, trying to appear interested
even if we are not. We try to hide the fact, but we feel awkward, embarrassed until we can find someone to say something to
anythinganything to break the spell of being alone in a crowd and, whats worse, being ashamed of being alone. Do we
sense the feelings of the others in the room? Are we aware that others have similar feelings? Are we aware of the lighting,
the air, the emotional atmosphere? Are we aware of our own feelings that we are so desperately trying to hide from
everyone else? How aware are we of the myriad sensations, feelings, and thoughts coursing through us? How vivid are our

impressions?

Self-Observation and the Centers

I know from personal experience that it is possible to divide my attention in this way so to practice self-observation, and
many others have written of their experiences. Gurdjieffs teaching regarding the centers and their parts provides an
explanation for this. Each center and each part, according to him, continues to function, to take in impressions and express
manifestations whether or not we become conscious of it. During his career as a hypnotist, Gurdjieff says he gained firsthand
experimental evidence of this.10 If Gurdjieff is right, then, consciously observing ourselves requires merely that we
consciously pay attention to processes that are always going on.
Is it good? Is self-observation beneficial? I believe so. If everyone were more aware of themselves, we would not be able
to murder one another either literally or in the heart,11 since we, in being aware of ourselves, would know what it is to be a
human beinga feeling, sensing, vibrating bit of energyand such knowledge or experience would make us more
sensitive to the feelings, more sensitive to the very being, of one another. I do not think that perpetrators of physical and
psychological violence would be capable of such acts if they were aware of themselves and aware of what it feels like to be
a human being.
Compulsive noticing of oneself, however, is not what Gurdjieff means by the practice of self-observation. From the point of
view of Gurdjieffs teaching, compulsive noticing represents a kind of narcissistic involvement with oneself, which functions
as an escape from making contact with the outside world rather than as a conscientious study of oneself for the purpose of
gaining self-knowledge.
The capacity to focus attention completely on one thing, to cease self-observation, in other words, for Gurdjieff, is just as
important as the capacity to consciously divide it, for there are situations that require ones complete attentionwhen you
are in a car, traveling at 65 miles an hour, and the car in front of you suddenly flashes its brake lights; when you go into a
deep sleep, finally getting a chance to rest from all of your labors and fears; when you are coming closer and closer to a
sexual orgasm, and all your attention is called to your genitalsand Im sure we could think of many other such situations.
To think that one should observe oneself always and in everything, therefore, is most likely expressive of a mechanistic
attitude toward working on oneself.
Self-observation, from the point of view of Gurdjieffs teaching, has another essential function: it enables us to discover
how we react with which centers. For when we feel able, we can attempt to observe which centers are especially active at
any moment or which centers we are coming from or are identified with at any time. When we do this, it gives us the
opportunity to see when we act appropriately, when our response to a situation calling for empathy, for example, actually is
empathetic and not calculative. Gurdjieff says we have tendencies in certain directions with regard to such matters. Some
tend to react emotionally when an intellectual response is more appropriate; others react intellectually when an emotional
response is called for.12
When we are presented with new ideas, Gurdjieffs ideas, for example, how do we characteristically react? Do we reject
the ideas out of hand because they do not correspond with our preconceived notions? Or do we fall in love with them without
question because they do? Neither reaction is necessarily a problem in itself if we are attentive and can adjust, that is, if we
are not identified with these feelings and thoughts. What type of response is appropriate when we are presented with new
ideas?
If we wish to attain the capacity to consider ideas objectively, the proper response is to examine them of course. But when
we become identified with one or another attitude, which we take as our response, a small piece of us has leaped out of
the whole to function as I while the rest of us remains dormant.

Self-Observation and the Fourth Way

The Fourth Way,[2] according to Gurdjieff, is a way of investigation. The teachings are put forth as theories or hypotheses
to be studied as one studies a science; thus they are not simply to be believed or not believed. By developing all the centers,
we put ourselves in a position where the various impressions balance and criticize one another, keeping us from falling prey
to identification with one type of impression, with the functioning of one center or part. Intellectual skepticism is thus a
requirement of the work, but so are love and trust. Emotional ardor is needed, but intellectual skepticism keeps it from
becoming the primary mode of response. Practice of self-observation, self-remembering, and other kinds of work yet to be
mentioned are required but are tempered by intellectual awareness of what the practices are aimed at and with emotional
contact with them.
Reacting with the emotions alone, therefore, is not appropriate with regard to the ideas of the workGurdjieff did not want
blind followers.13 The ideas, however, cannot be validated on intellectual grounds aloneit is not simply a matter of logic or
reason.
Impressions from all the centers are needed, including those of the higher centers. Some researchers into spiritual
evolution prefer the impressions of the higher centers in fact. Gurdjieff, however, says that for such impressions to result in
genuine evolution, they must fall on an organism whose lower centers are fully functioning and healthy. When higher
impressions fall on an organism whose lower centers are not fully functioning, the impressions become mystified and
misconstrued.

What is unique to the Fourth Way, and what attracted me to it in the first place, is that no function is denied its proper role,
including sexuality, which Gurdjieff claims is one of the most important functions of all with regard to spiritual evolution.14
Because it calls for a balance of functioning, Gurdjieff refers to the Fourth Way as objective science,15 distinguishing it from
mysticism (in which a doctrine or guru is worshipped) and mechanistic science (where the scientist focuses attention only on
the external impressions and neglects what is happening within). The Gurdjieff Work, then, is conceived of as a science of
the whole of reality, reality without and reality within, and self-observation plays an essential role in experimentally verifying
the ideas.

Notes
1. P. D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way.
2. ISM, pp. 117-22, 141, 179, 224.
3. Ibid., pp. 188-93.
4. Edward Fitzgerald (trans.), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (New York: Doubleday), p. 96.
5. FW, p. 107; ASGT, pp. 38-57, 83-99, 138-46; C, pp. 527ff, 601ff, and passim.
6. ISM, pp. 65-8.
7. BT, Purgatory, pp. 748ff.
8. ISM, pp. 105-18, 145-50, 223.
9. C, p. 410, and passim; VFRW, p. 148.
10. BT, pp. 579-90, 1135, 1169.
11. Maurice Nicoll, The New Man (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1972).
12. ISM, pp. 246-7, 254.
13.

See, for example, Louise Welch, Orage with Gurdjieff in America (Boston: Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1982); VFRW, p.
201.

14. ISM, pp. 257-8.

15. BT, p. 238.

CHAPTER FIVE
The First and Second Conscious Shocks
Seeing and Being Ourselves

Self-observation and self-remembering function as two sides of a single process that we have identified as the First
Conscious Shock. Self-observation divides attention, divides the psyche into observing I and the I (or Is) observed, a
process that creates a necessary tension in which we come to see ourselves. The tension is reconciled in self-remembering
as we attempt to feel ourselves as a whole or, in other words, come to be ourselves.
It cannot be merely by seeing ourselves that the movement of evolution occurswhen practiced in isolation, this
stimulates much to think or talk about but does not necessarily lead to a change in being. And it cannot be merely by being
ourselves that evolution is stimulated either, for if that were the case, we could remain as false or unconscious as we like
and still evolve. Actual movement in the work requires both an increase of tension and a discharge of tension, a movement
very much like breathing and other natural biological processes such as movement of the blood (which requires systole and
diastole) or of the urine (filling and emptying of the bladder).

Thinking and Feeling Ourselves

Gurdjieff teaches that the energy that enters the organism with the First Conscious Shock is at the same level of density
as the energy used by the intellectual center. This implies that the stimulus initially brought about by self-observation is
triggered by thoughtspecifically, by the awareness of impressions of any center by the thinking center. Self-observation, in
other words, is, at the outset, a function of the thinking center, which is to say that the observing I has its seat in the intellect.
On the other hand, for the First Conscious Shock to be complete, it must, as Ouspensky says, become emotional.1 This
means that self-observation, initiated by the intellect, produces energy for the emotional center. The second beat of the
First Conscious Shock, self-remembering or the feeling of oneself as a whole, utilizes this energy.
Together, self-observation, initiated by the intellect, and self-remembering, a function of the emotions, help produce
energy for the entire psyche, including the higher centers. In this respect, a complete First Conscious Shock results in a more
unified psyche. At first, attention is divided in a study of the Is and the impressions of the centers; then it is unified in a feeling
of the whole as attention-energy spreads throughout the centers, coordinating them in one unifying experience of the self.
The interval between the two sides of this experience may, over time and with practice, become so small as to be
imperceptible so that both self-observation and self-remembering can be experienced as one unified experience.

Dissolution of Buffers
This characterization of the First Conscious Shock as an increase-oftension/discharge-of-tension function shows it to
be a remarkably natural function in that, as mentioned, it mirrors the pulsational nature of all other life processes. On the
other hand, it seems that we need to be reminded over and over again to practice it, as if we had to force something that by
itself, or naturally, would not occur. And yet, as all who have tried to observe/remember themselves on a consistent basis
know, it does take practice; we dont observe or remember ourselves automatically.
According to the way Gurdjieff presents the issue in his allegorical work, if we were healthy or normal three-brained
beings, we would naturally observe and remember ourselves (practice the Sacred Antkooano) for this practice would be
taught to us by our culture. But we are not healthy or normal three-brained beings, for our culture is not normal or healthy,
and so we have not been brought up properly, so to speak. Thus we have buffers or, as Gurdjieff puts it, the dirt and rust
of long-accumulated sins that clog up the organism and slow down the work of the centers.2 With buffers in place, we think
we already are unified, that theres nothing more to do, that this level of consciousness is all there is.
To get the First Conscious Shock moving, then, we need to begin the process of dissolution of the buffers and learn the
value of self-observation and self-remembering. As buffers dissolve, new energy is pumped into the system, and we have
the force to continue to carry out the practice. As the experience is triggered and we come to see and be ourselves more
clearly, even more buffers can dissolve, even more energy can be put into our systems, and we can trigger the experience
better and more consistently. This, it seems, is what is meant by Gurdjieffs notion that self-remembering deepens when we
have more of a self to remember.

The Self as Free Energy

Gurdjieffs theory of energy transformation allows us to view the concept of the essential self in an interesting way:
besides the physical body and its centers, the self is constituted by the free energy within our bodies that the centers use in
their work. Via such a conception, the self is seen not simply as a metaphor, a psychological construct, but as a concrete,
material-energetic substance. When free to be used by the centers, it functions as essence; when trapped in congealed form
in the body, it functions as buffers and forms the basis for the false personality. Buffers, from this perspective, are not strange,
foreign apparatus but merely coarse, overly dense, immobile essence. Melt them, and essence returns to its natural, more

mobile state and can then be transformed into the right densities for use by the centers.
From this point of view, having buffers is having too much structure. The body, of course, requires structures, materially
dense energy in the form of bones, tissue, muscles, cartilage, organsbut when we are buffered, we have too much dense
energy and not enough free energy. This condition may be referred to in psychological terms as when we say the self is not
unified, false, out of contact with essence, but the actual condition is more concretely described as an energetic one, a case
of too much dense energy.

The Second Conscious Shock

From Gurdjieffs point of view, when we trigger the First Conscious Shock, we produce as much sex energy and energy
for use by the higher emotional center as these centers need and energy for use by the higher intellectual center as well.
This latter center, however, according to Gurdjieff, requires more energy to function to capacity than is produced via the First
Conscious Shock alone. For the requisite amount of this energy, another stimulus is needed, what is called the Second
Conscious Shock.
This stimulus also has another important function. It is said to be the alchemical agent that produces the fire that fuses
the energy-matter of the physical body into the energy-matter of the first higher-being body, the Higher Emotional Body.
Gurdjieff sometimes refers to this fire as the fire of conscience; thus the Second Conscious Shock triggers the full
functioning, the raising-from-the-dead, as it were, of conscience.

The Consequences of the Organ Kundabuffer

Gurdjieff illustrates this process in Beelzebubs Tales where he has Beelzebub tell of the coming to Earth of a teacher, a
messenger from above, named Ashiata Shiemash, who is said to have studied the three-brained beings on Earth for a
period of time before determining that the best method of waking us up was by reawakening our consciences.3 According to
the tale, a long time before certain sacred individuals had determined that something had gone wrong with the balance
between the Earth and its moons (it had two of them at the time, the story goes), which had to be corrected to avert a cosmic
calamity.4 In order to do so, a special organ, known as the organ Kundabuffer, had to be implanted in the tails of the
three-brained beings (which, according to the tale, we still had at the time). The organ functioned to cause reality to be taken
for illusion and vice versa, a clear reference to the state of waking-sleep.
Implantation of this organ caused the calamity to be avertedthe details of how this happened can be found in the book
and so the organ Kundabuffer could later be removed. But earthlings had become so habituated to seeing everything
wrongly that this proclivityknown as the consequences of the organ Kundabuffercould not be removed as easily as the
organ itself.
These consequences, says Beelzebub, had built up for a long period of time prior to the coming of Ashiata Shiemash.
He decided, as mentioned, that the best way of removing them was by reawakening conscience, for he decided that
although consciencewhich he determined to be an inborn capacity and not something simply learnedhad not been
manifesting in the personalities of the earthlings, it was still viable, if buried, in the subconscious. The tale continues by
saying that the teacher organized a brotherhood of conscientious beings that began working on themselves to reawaken
conscience and to remove the accursed consequences.

Overcoming the Consequences

The concept of the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, as expressed in the allegory, appears to be a reference to
the buffers and how they function via the false personality. Ashiata Shiemashs conclusion as to the continued viability of
conscience indicates Gurdjieffs belief that it is possible to destroy the buffers and to awaken conscience from its slumber.
This means, to begin with, on our analysis, triggering the First Conscious Shock, or observing-remembering ourselves.
This enables us to see the consequences of the organ and be the essence, a process that creates the necessary energetic
densities for use by the centers so that the Second Conscious Shock can be triggered and conscience awakened. In the
process, according to Gurdjieff, the energy-matter needed for crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body is formed.
This energy-matter, according to Gurdjieff, is at the energetic density of sex energy (energy 12). Because of this, the
process involves the functioning of the sex center. We thus need to know more about how this center functions before
continuing with our analysis of the Second Conscious Shock (our discussion of sexuality begins in part two).

Notes
1. FW, p. 111.
2. VFRW, pp. 50, 255.
3. BT, pp. 347ff.
4. Ibid., pp. 87ff.

CHAPTER SIX
Relativity
Relativity and the Law of Three

The expressions As above, so below and Every stick always has two ends

transmit the Principle of Relativity as it is

expressed in Gurdjieffs system, a principle that expresses, to my mind, the very essence of his teaching. Each expression
involves three elements. In the first, there is above, below, and what they have in common, the scale, of which above
represents above and below represents below. In the second there are the two ends of the stickwhich can be thought of as
positive and negative or, as in the Chinese version of the principle, the yang and yinand the common third, the stick, in the
Chinese version, tao.
Gurdjieffs concept of relativity is another way of expressing his concept of the Law of Threethat every situation, every
thing, every process involves three forces: first force, second force, and third force.2 To think according to this law is to
think in threes rather than in twos, to think in terms of what opposites have in common rather than only in terms of how they
differ. Such thinking, for Gurdjieff, transcends calculative or binary logic, the logic of either-or of the formatory apparatus and
computers.
Heidegger, near the end of his career, called such thinking meditative thinkingthinking that seeks to reconcile
apparent paradoxes or contradictions in a third that identifies what the contradictions or opposites have in common and
provides the ground of their difference. To apply this kind of thinking to the mind/body problem, for instance, would be to
seek out what mind and body have in common that accounts for their difference. Heidegger, in his inimitable way, defines
such thinking as indwelling in releasement to that-which-regions, or expanding into the nearness of distance.3 Put more
simply, thinking via the Law of Three is thinking analogically, a form of thinking akin to Reichs concept of functional
thinking, which means, for him, understanding differences in terms of a common root or common functioning principle. 4

Relativity and Food-Energy

The Principle of Relativity is illustrated on the Food Enneagram. We remember that each of the intervals or shock points
represents the taking in of food of one kind or another. Regarding the Principle of Relativity, we ask, what do the three being
foods have in common? Food, in general, for Gurdjieff, is energy; the various foods are thus energy at different densities.
This means that third-being food, or impressions, is not only different from firstand second-being food but is also the same
in that it consists of energy at a specific density.
This relation between impressions, food, and energy is not a one-way relationshipimpressions are a form of food and
energy, but food or energy of any kind is also a form of impressions. This implies that when we take in food, we take in
impressionsthat each of the centers, in other words, take in impressions, or food-energy-impressions, specifically the foodenergy-impressions each is attuned to or is capable of assimilating.
When we take first-being food with the digestive systemwhen we eat vegetables, for examplethe digestive system is
taking in food-energy-impressions. When we breathe, the respiratory system is taking in food-energy-impressions of a finer
energetic density. In tasting, smelling, and viewing the vegetables, we take in food-energy-impressions of an even finer
energetic density; and as our intellect classifies, identifies, and recognizes these impressions, it, too, brings in a form of foodenergy-impressions.
In terms of the symbols discussed above, eating first-being food brings in food-energy-impressions at energetic density
768; breathing brings in food-energy-impressions at energetic density 192; sensing the food brings in food-energyimpressions at energetic density 24; thinking it at energetic density 48; and if we have feelings concerning any of the forms
of food-energy-impressions, more food-energy-impressions at energetic density 24 enter. Considered relatively, then, the
concepts of food, air, energy, and impressions are, from the perspective of their common root (third), interchangeable
they are all aspects of a common functioning principle, the functioning at different densities of the same energy-matter. Air
is the food of the respiratory system; food, the air of the digestive system; impressions are the air of the psyche; air, the
impressions of the respiratory systemand so on and so forth.

The Relativity of Self-Remembering

Besides the relativity of food, air, energy, and impressions, there is the relativity of self-remembering. When we remember
ourselves, of course we bring in impressions. But this means, on the Principle of Relativity, that we bring in food and energy
indicating that self-remembering is not unrelated to the other forms of food-energy-impressions intake. This is exhibited on
the Food Enneagram in that self-remembering, like eating and breathing, functions as a shock.
The implication is that wherever food-energy-impressions enter, in whatever form, by whatever organism, center, or body,
self-remembering of a kind occurs. When we eat food, on this perspective, the digestive system remembers itself, and when
we breathe, the respiratory system remembers itself. When we take in impressions with a part of one of the psychic centers, it
remembers itself. As we think with the formatory apparatussaid to be the moving part, the most mechanical part, of the

intellect, for exampleit, too, can be said to be remembering itself.

One centers self-remembering, of course, does not cause us to remember ourselves, since we, psychologically
speaking, are the entire psyche. For our self-remembering to occur, all the psychic centers must become involved, must
remember themselves, something that happens when the intellect as a whole remembers itself and triggers the First
Conscious Shock, the expansive transformation of energy into densities the other centers can remember themselves with.

Feeling of the Whole and the Impressions of the Second Conscious Shock
Self-remembering, as mentioned, says Ouspensky, is the feeling of the whole. On the Principle of Relativity, this implies
that whenever and however food-energy-impressions are taken, in that a form of self-remembering occurs, a feeling of the
whole occurs. The First Conscious Shock is the model or archetype of this feeling, but the Second Conscious Shock, in that it
functions to bring in food-energy-impressions and is thus a form of self-remembering, functions as a feeling of the whole as
well.
In this respect, the First and Second Conscious Shocks are similar. They differ in that in terms of the symbols, the First
utilizes energy 48 and transforms it into energies 24 and 12 and the Second utilizes energy 12 and transforms it into
energies 6 and 3.
As one moves up the scale of functions, from the digestive system to the respiratory system through the lower
psychological centers to the higher centers, the feeling of the whole triggered by the functioning of the centers becomes finer
(more subtle) because the energies involved become less dense. The feeling of the whole triggered by the Second
Conscious Shock, theoretically speaking, should thus be more profound, more total, involve more of the whole, than the
feeling of the whole produced by the centers alone and by the First Conscious Shock.
What kind of food-energy-impressions is brought in via the Second Conscious Shock? To know what such food is like, of
course, is to taste it, but it is not as if we must remain totally in the dark even if we have yet to partake of such a fine repast.
First of all, merely by eating, breathing, and taking in impressions mechanically, some energy 12 is produced, and since the
Second Conscious Shock utilizes this energy and the impressions it brings in are of this density, we can have some idea of
what such impressionsimpressions of the higher emotional center and the sex centerare like. If we remember ourselves
consistently, we produce more energy 12 and so can gain a better idea of what such impressions are like.
Many have reported their impressions of what seems to have been such an experience. Rodney Collin, a student of
Ouspensky who studied with Gurdjieff for a time, for example, refers to such impressions as expressive of ecstatic love.5
Gurdjieff says they involve the feeling of religiousness, an awareness of the sacredness and divinity of everything existing,
impressions he says occur with the awakening of conscience.6 Dhiravamsa, a contemporary Buddhist, characterizes the
highest point of sexuality as awareness of the very essence of the movement of the universe.7 Such an awareness means,
for him, loss of all identification and the feeling of separateness and a feeling of unity with the cosmos, an idea echoed down
through the ages by lovers and poets of all kinds.
Such a feeling of unity with the cosmos appears related to what is variously described as satori, nirvana, samadhily,
awakening the Atman, becoming the Christ, reaching one of the Higher Heavens, and so on, in that these experiences are
described in terms of unification or merger with the All (however it is conceived), loss of all identification and separateness.
Theoretically speaking, the Second Conscious Shock brings in impressions like these, which means that when it occurs we
literally experience this kind of realitythis is the kind of feeling of the whole it triggers. As a form of self-remembering, it
connects our self with the greater Self, the Being of the universe, of the All or the Absolute, as Gurdjieff sometimes calls it.
When we have such an experience, when we remember ourselves in this way, we know that we are not merely our body,
mind, or emotions, not to speak of any one of the Is that we tend to identify with, but that, in an important respect, we also are
the All. The traditions from which the above-mentioned notions come agree that what we really are is not just our separate
selves but what is variously called Cosmic Energy, Universal Mind, Tao, Brahman, God, the Subtle World, and so on. The
impressions of the Second Conscious Shock bring us the feeling of this, what I take to be a reality.
In that the shock awakens conscience, it can lead to impressions of remorse of conscience when we do something that
is objectively, or in the light of conscience, wrong.8 The feeling of unity with everything is thus, for Gurdjieff, at the root of
conscience, at the root of our understanding of right and wrong. Rightness and wrongness, what Gurdjieff calls objective
morality, is thus a function of feeling everything as sacred, which implies feeling the essence of things. Whether or not what
we do is objectively right or wrong, then, when understood from the point of view of the impressions brought in by the
Second Conscious Shock, is whether or not what we do pertains to essence or is essential.
The symbol systems we are using express that the Second Conscious Shock functions not only to bring in impressions at
energetic density 12 (impressions of the sex center and the higher emotional center) but also to fill the MI-FA interval of the
impressions or third-being food octave in production of energy 6 and energy 3. In this respect, the shock provides a strong
flavor or taste of another level of being, viz, what self-remembering is like when triggered by the Third Conscious Shock, a
feeling of the whole said to bring in knowledge or thought-impressions of the All. In learning to regularly trigger the Second
Conscious Shock, then, we prepare for the Third Conscious Shock, thus a deeper awareness of who we really are.9

The Relativity of Feeling

To say that however food-energy-impressions are taken a feeling of the whole occurs is to say that each of the centers
and their parts feel. Thinking formatorily, we might say, But how can the digestive system feel itself? How can the physical
center or the intellect feel themselves? I thought feeling is a function of the emotional center. When we think in this way,
however, we resurrect the atomistic problem of trying to relate functions that appear disparate, such as mind and body,
emotions and thoughts, etc. The problem is strange and frustratingwe know from experience that mind and body, feelings
and thoughts are related; we just dont know how (or how to put it in such a way that we avoid contradiction and paradox).
For Gurdjieff, the problem is a pseudoproblem caused by our tendency to think formatorily, in twos instead of threes, in
terms of either-or rather than both-and. That we think this way, for Gurdjieff, is no accidentthis is the way the formatory
apparatus thinks, and since we think mostly with it (in waking-sleep), thats how we think. We dont realize that when we
think, the intellect feels thoughts, that when we breathe, the lungs feel air, etc. We dont realize, in other words, that all is one,
that at the root of all of being is a common functioning principle that unifies the apparently disparate functions. Should we
trigger the First Conscious Shock, we will gain some experience of this unity, and should we trigger the Second Conscious
Shock, an even deeper experience of it.
To say this, however, is to say that verification of the concept that apparently disparate functions are grounded in a
common functioning principle is a matter of personal experience, a type of verification procedure we usually refer to as
subjective or, from a scientific point of view, mystical. In other words, it may seem as if, via Gurdjieffs teachings, the
mind/body problem is solved mystically, philosophically, metaphysically, or by fiat, since, for those of us who have not
experienced the unity, Gurdjieffs teaching has the status of a statement without experimental evidence. Later, however, we
will see that if Reichs discoveries are valid, this is not the case, that the common functioning principle that unites feelings,
thoughts, sensations, and, in fact, everything existing has been experimentally discovered and demonstrated.

On the Totality of the Feeling of the Whole Triggered

by the Second Conscious Shock
Given that the impressions taken in via the Second Conscious Shock are profound and subtle, have we proven that they
are more total than the forms of self-remembering or feelings of the whole said to occur lower on the scale of functions? In
one sense of the word total or whole we have, for they involve a whole, the All, which transcends the whole of our own
organism. Yet various traditions consider such impressions a function of only one part of us, what is often thought of as the
spiritual part, which does not include the gross physical body. If this is true, then the impressions of the Second Conscious
Shock are not more total, do not encompass more of the organism but are a function of only a part of us.
Those that hold such a view usually consider bodily functions in general and sexuality in particular functions to be
suppressed or discarded in the quest for spiritual experience and evolution.10 The body and sexuality are considered gross
or low, and it is thought that their energies must be redirected or sublimated if spiritual growth is desired. We need not look
solely to esotericism, of course, for this idea. It is found in such disparate perspectives as those of orthodox religion and
some interpreters of psychoanalysis (where spiritual growth means cultural achievement). It is not merely coincidental that
many who hold such a view consider the body and sexuality distinct or separate from spirit, and it is often thought that the
former have their source in what is essentially evil or unclean while the latter is thought of as an emanation of divinity.11
Gurdjieff does not comprehend reality in this way. For him, bodily functions and sexuality are divine as are the higher
functions. Furthermore, for him, properly working bodily functions are essential for spiritual development since they take in
food-energy-impressions that initiate the process of energy transformation that results or can result in the formation of the
higher energetic densities. Gurdjieff also teaches that sexuality, when it functions properly, utilizes energy 12 (symbolically
speaking), the same energy used by the higher emotional center (what we might call the first spiritual center). This is the
energy of the Second Conscious Shock, the experience that brings impressions of the feeling of religiousness, unity with the
cosmos, merger with the All, and that awakens conscience.
Is this an accident? Did Gurdjieff make a colossal error in ascribing such a high function to sexuality? Not likely. In fact, as
we shall see, it is via this aspect of his teaching that we can understand how the impressions of the Second Conscious
Shock can not only be more subtle and profound than those brought in by the First Conscious Shock, but how they can be
more total. Before we can reach such an understanding, however, we must know more about sexuality when it functions
properly (discussed in part 2).

Relativity of Worlds: The Ray of Creation

The Principle of Relativity is illustrated in Gurdjieffs symbol of the Ray of Creation,12 a symbol used by him to show how
the universe was created as well as the relationship of the various levels of being. The Ray of Creation is related to the
Symbol of Hydrogens, the Symbol of the Octave, and the Enneagram (and can be plotted on it). Creation is explained via
this symbol as originating with what is called the Absolute, a world or cosmos functionally defined as being governed by
one law.
From this state of absolute unity, the rest of being is portrayed as emerging in a downward emanation, an emanation that
is said to occur in distinct levels or stages, with each level defined in terms of the number of laws operating within it or, what
amounts to the same thing, in terms of energetic density. As creation moves down the Ray, the number of laws increases
and unity decreases. As unity decreases (or the number of laws increases), consciousness is said to decrease (or the level
of consciousness) whereas material density, complexity, entropy (or relative chaos) increases.

Similar Theories of the Past

Similar accounts of creation can be found in numerous traditions though without the specificity and precision (and, I
would say, depth of understanding) expressed by Gurdjieffs symbol. Examples can be found among the Greeks.
Empedocles, for instance, conceived of the universe as evolving and involving in a continuous cycle from original unity (pure
Being) to complexity (the myriad things) and back to unity again. Being, for him, breaks up into four elements; the elements,
into pieces of the elements. The pieces then combine to form the many things. Things eventually break up and return to their
former state as pieces of the elements. The pieces recombine to form the four elements, and the elements recombine to form
pure, unitary, unmoving Being. The movement or changes, for Empedocles, are stimulated by two forces he calls Love (that
which brings things together) and Strife (that which tears things apart).13
His predecessor, Parmenides, by logic sublime, had proved that Being as such can contain no motion or principle of
change so that motion or change is an illusion. Heraclitus, on the other hand, had shown that permanence is the illusion, not
change, and that change is of the essence of the universe or Being.14 Seeing both sides of the stick, Empedocles attempted
to incorporate both permanence (Being) and change (Becoming) into one coherent model of creation (although its
coherence is adversely affected by his placement of Love and Strife, the forces of change, outside of pure Being).
Plato thought of creation as radiating down in levels from a principle of unity he called The Good. Below the Good, for
Plato, stand various levels of Forms or general Ideas, and below these the things of the world. A form of incoherence crept
into his system due to his ascription of matter to a separate realm from that which radiates down from the Good.15 Later
Plotinus developed a similar model.16
Genesis contains a Ray-like conception of creation as do other books of the Bible. A recently republished translation from
the original Hebrew text made by Fabre dOlivet at the beginning of the nineteenth century expresses this beautifully.
According to dOlivets translation, Genesis describes creation as an emanation from a principle of unity or a One called
Aelohim. From Aelohim comes the Principle of Potential Existence, a concept very much like Gurdjieffs concept of All
Worlds (see below). From this comes Unmanifested Cosmic Substance with pregnant life, then Light, and then the
separation of Light and Dark, the first phenomenal (material-like) manifestations. The translation goes on to say that
Aetherial Space or a potential universe was then created, which Aelohim separated into inferior and rarefied, higher
realms. From this came the Ideas or Principle of earth, the heavenly bodies, vegetation, animals, and Adam (the Idea of
mankind); and finally actual (material) earth, the heavenly bodies, vegetation, animals, and human beings.17
Traditional interpretations of the Bible also include a Ray-like conception of creation. The idea of God emanating down in
levels such as angels, archangels, etc., in fact, is used by Gurdjieff in Beelzebubs Tales in symbolic presentation of his
ideas.18 The idea that creation develops from a state of pure unity to greater and greater complexity, then, is deeply rooted in
Western consciousness.
Such a notion is almost ubiquitous to the East as well, as can be seen in Chinese philosophy, for example. Numerous
examples could be citedfor instance, the view of Chou Tun-yi (born AD 1017),19 who, in assimilating the views of various
traditions in China, pictured creation as originating from what he called the Ultimateless, a state of absolute unity that a
contemporary Tai Chi master and scholar, Jou Tsung Hwa, identifies as Wu Chi, or pure nothingness.20 Out of the
Ultimateless, said Chou Tun-yi, comes the Supreme Ultimate, which Jou identifies as Tao, or the level of being where
nothingness has become somethingness but still in unified or undifferentiated form. This change from Wu Chi (or pure
nothingness) to Tao occurs, says Jou, because within Wu Chi is the principle of change. From the Supreme Ultimate, for
Chou Tun-yi, come the opposite forces or principles Yin and Yang. As they mix and merge, the seasons come and then, as
they form separate concentrations, the myriad things.

Gurdjieffs Model
For Gurdjieff, the symbol of the Ray of Creation begins with the Absolute, under one law or complete unification. From it,
so to speak, comes All Worlds, said to exist under three laws. From this comes All Suns (or a particular galaxy), said to
exist under six laws. Out of this emanates the Sun (any sun), under twelve laws; then the Solar System (any solar system),
under twenty-four laws; the Planet (any planet), under forty-eight laws; and the Moon (any moon), under ninety-six laws. In
that from All Suns on down, the reference is to any particular galaxy, sun, planet, and moon, there are many rays of creation
we on our planet live and are products of only one of them.
In Beelzebubs Tales, the Absolute is characterized as a kind of sun (the Holy Sun Absolute21) and, as such, would have
many rays. The symbol of the Ray of Creation, like that of the Enneagram, has many ramifications, only one of which will be
focused on herehow it relates to the Principle of Relativity as it functions regarding the evolution of human consciousness.

Relativity of Being and Consciousness

Humans, or as Gurdjieff refers to us (and our kind anywhere in the universe), three-brained beings in general, live on
planets but not, of course, as a planet, not at the level of being of a planet. We live on the surface of a planet, are the highest
(in terms of consciousnessso we believe!) manifestation of the planets biosphere, and so live at the level of being of the
biosphere or its highest part. The planet we live on, according to the symbol of the Ray of Creation, is under forty-eight laws;
but we, as children of Oceana, as creations of the planet (in its relation and interaction with the sun and the solar system22),
as biospherical beings, in other words, live under more than forty-eight laws. As the highest manifestation of the biosphere,
we live under fewer laws than two-brained or one-brained beings or entities with no brain systems at all, such as minerals.

World

Laws

Absolute

All Worlds

All Suns

Sun

12

Solar System 24
Planet

48

Moon

96

The Ray of Creation

Figure 8
According to Gurdjieff, we can raise our level of being and our level of consciousness to that of the planet and beyond.
Should we crystallize a Higher Emotional Body, according to him, our level of being would be raised from that of the
biosphere to that of the planet as a whole (which includes the various atmospheric levels and emanations of the planetits
psyche or consciousness). Should we crystallize a Higher Mental Body, our level of being would reach that of the solar
system, and should we crystallize a Fourth Body or Soul, it would reach the level of the sun.
On this concept of being, then, each being has consciousness. We normally do not think of planets, stars, and galaxies as
having consciousness and believe that human beings have the highest form of consciousness. Gurdjieffs perspective is
representative of another kind of what could be called a Copernican Revolution, one that teaches that humanity is rather
low in terms of level of being and consciousness with respect to everything that exists in the universe.
Being level, for Gurdjieff, though it evolves along with level of consciousness, is not equivalent to it. He says, for example,
that the Soul can reach the level of understanding of All Suns (a galaxy, under six laws) but only the level of being of a sun
(under twelve laws).2 3 As one moves down the scale of bodies from the Soul, the relationship is maintained: The Higher
Mental Body understands at the level of the sun while its level of being is that of the solar system; the Higher Emotional Body
understands at the level of the solar system while its level of being is that of a planet as a whole; the physical body can
understand at the level of a planet as a whole while its being level remains as the highest form of the biosphere.
Level of being and level of consciousness are defined in terms of the range of food-energy-impressions necessary for, in
the case of being, survival of the body and, in the case of consciousness, impressions taken in by the psyche. The physical
body requires food at energetic density 768, air at density 192, and impressions at density 48 for survival, while its level of
consciousness depends upon how many impressions at higher densities, how many of and how fine are the psychological
impressions, it takes in. The range of energetic densities 768 to 48 defines the body as a biospherical being, as a body that
can survive only on the surface of a planet that has a biosphere. The range of impressions 48 to 6 defines its level of
consciousness.
Being level and consciousness level are intimately connected, and in differentiating them we are speaking relatively. As
biospherical beings, we take in food that is higher than the level of the biosphere per se. Air is not biospherical food but
atmospheric food. Impressions at density 48 can be linked via the Symbol of Hydrogens and the Ray of Creation to planetary
food (under forty-eight laws). Rodney Collin points out, in this connection, that we could not have impressions-48 if it were
not for the influence of planetary forces on our centers.24 Impressions-24, according to Collin and via the symbols, are at the
level of the solar system (under twenty-four laws). Impressions of the higher emotional center and the sex center (when it
functions properly), which enter as energy 12, are impressions at the level of the sun (under twelve laws); and impressions
of the higher intellect, which enter as energy 6, are impressions at the level of a galaxy (under six laws).
Levels of being interact in that each level depends on those lower and higher for survival. The biosphere requires the
geosphere and the atmosphere for its survival as well as the solar system and the sun. Humans require the biosphere,
which depends on the geosphere, and humans depend on the atmosphere, the solar system, and the sun as well. The solar
system depends on the sun and the sun on the galaxy . . . and the galaxy on All Worlds and All Worlds on the Absolute. Even
the Absolute is said to be dependent: it depends on the evolution of three-brained beingswho depend on the biosphere,
which depends on the geosphere, which is, in effect, at the level of being of the moon. This means that everything depends
on everything else for its survival, what Gurdjieff calls the Trogoautoegocratic Process, or the Law of Reciprocal Feeding
and World Maintenance.25
Everything eats, and everything is eaten by something.26 Level of being and level of consciousness are defined in terms
of the range of energetic densities a cosmic concentration eats and is eaten by. Hay eats minerals, cows eat hay, humans

eat cows (some humans anyway).

But within the biosphere, overlapping occurs: hay eats water, cows eat water, humans eat water, and they all eat
air. Humans eat vegetation, cows eat vegetation, insects eat vegetation. In terms of the psyche, differences in being and
consciousness level can be illustrated thusly: hay doesnt feel in the same way that animals feel; animals dont think in the
way waking-sleeping humans think; waking-sleeping humans dont think, feel, or sense the way awake humans think, feel,
and sense.

Relativity and the Higher-Being Bodies

The relativity of being and of consciousness extends, of course, for Gurdjieff, to the realm of the higher-being bodies. The
Higher Emotional Body, at a level of being higher than the physical body, takes as its first-being food what the physical body
takes as its second-being food: the Higher Emotional Body eats air. For its second-being food, the Higher Emotional Body
takes what for the physical body is its third-being food: the Higher Emotional Body breathes impressions-48. For its thirdbeing food, the Higher Emotional Body takes what for the physical body is its fourth-being food: the Higher Emotional Body
takes as its impressions-48 what for the physical body are higher emotions, at density 12. For its fourth-being food, the
Higher Emotional Body takes what for the physical body is its fifth-being food: the Higher Emotional Body takes as its higher
emotions the physical bodys higher intellectual impressions, at density 6. The Higher Emotional Body can take in an even
higher form of impressions, one that is not possible for the physical body at all, what for the Higher Emotional Body are its
higher intellectual impressions, at density 3.
Put in terms of the Ray of Creation, the Higher Emotional Body eats atmospheric food, breathes planetary food, perceives
at the level of the sun, and takes its higher emotions at the level of All Suns and its higher intellectual impressions at the
level of All Worlds. In comparison, the physical body eats biospherical food, breathes atmospheric food, perceives at the
level of the planet and solar system, and experiences its higher emotions at the level of the sun and its higher intellectual
impressions at the level of All Suns.
The same relationship would hold for the other higher-being bodies: the Higher Mental Body eats at the level of the
physical bodys impressions-48 and the Higher Emotional Bodys airenergy 48, or planetary food. It breathes at the level
of the physical bodys higher emotions and the Higher Emotional Bodys impressions-48energy 12, or food of the sun. It
perceives at the level of the physical bodys higher intellectual impressions and the Higher Emotional Bodys higher
emotionsenergy 6, or food of All Suns. It takes as its higher emotions impressions the physical body has no organ for but
at the level of the Higher Emotional Bodys higher intellectual impressionsenergy 3, or food of All Worlds. And it takes as
its higher intellectual impressions food that neither the physical body nor the Higher Emotional Body can takeenergy 1, or
food of the Absolute.
The Fourth Body or the Soul eats energy 12, or food of the sun, the physical bodys higher emotions, the Higher
Emotional Bodys impressions-48, and the Higher Mental Bodys air. It breathes energy 6, or food of All Suns, the physical
bodys higher intellectual impressions, the Higher Emotional Bodys higher emotional impressions, and the Higher Mental
Bodys impressions-48. It takes as its impressions-48, its perceptions, energy 3, or food of All Worlds, which the physical
body cannot take in but are the Higher Emotional Bodys higher intellectual impressions and the Higher Mental Bodys
higher emotional impressions. It takes as its higher emotions energy 1, or food of the Absolute, which neither the physical
nor Higher Emotional Body can take but which are the Higher Mental Bodys higher intellectual impressions. And it takes as
its higher intellectual impressions energy O (whatever this might mean) and is the only body that can do so.
Whether or not we literally crystallize higher-being bodies, whether or not they literally survive the death of the physical
body, we can, says the symbol system, reach the levels of being and consciousness of the higher-being bodies, for when we
crystallize them, we are them. Such an increase in level of consciousness means an increase in level of impressions. From
the Higher Emotional Body we will be able to receive impressions of All Worlds, or reality as it appears under the aspect of
three laws. From the Higher Mental Body we will be able to receive impressions of the Absolute, or reality as it appears
under the aspect of one law. From the Soul we will be able to receive an even clearer view of the Absolute, for it will come in
as a direct perception, as impressions-48, and as impressions of higher emotions; and if there is anything beyond the
Absolute, symbolized as energy O, we will be able to have impressions of that too (Wu Chi?).
From our present point of view, from the point of view of waking-sleep, we can receive some faint impressions from the
perspective of the sun, for we have some energy 12 with which to take in such impressions with the sex center and the
higher emotional center. When awake, we gain a better view of reality from such a point of view for we are capable of
consistently observing/remembering ourselves, or triggering the First Conscious Shock, and so have more energyimpressions 12 with which to see from. When awake we also gain a better view of reality from the point of view of a galaxy,
or reality under the aspect of six laws, since we have more energy 6, which can be used by the higher intellect.
Our level of consciousness, therefore, is determined by how well we can assimilate impressions from higher levels of
being, how well we understand them. To be in waking-sleep means to more or less understand the biosphere, and
sublevels within waking-sleep can be determined by how well we understand it. To be awake means to understand reality
from the point of view of a planet as a whole, to be, in other words, ecological in understanding. To be more conscious than
this is what is meant by the concept of a higher-being body. Whether we physically crystallize one in the same way as our
physical bodies are formed, or if the concept simply refers to levels of consciousness and capacity to act or be (being level)
within our physical bodies, remains to be seen.

Level of Being Impressions Possible For

World

Level of Understanding

Absolute (1)
All Worlds (3)
All Suns (6)

Soul

Soul

Sun (12)

Higher Mental Body

Higher Mental Body

Solar System (12)

Higher Emotional Body

Higher Emotional Body

Planet (48)

Physical Body (Awake)

atmosphere
Physical Body

biosphere

Physical Body (Waking-Sleep)

geosphere

Physical Body (Sleep)

moon (96)

Physical Body (Death)

Ray of Creation and Levels of Being, Levels of Understanding,

Levels of Impressions
Figure 9

A Simple Idea
Although complex when spelled out (and I have only touched a few of the highlights), the Ray of Creation and the
Principle of Relativity in relation to being and consciousness is based on a simple idea: one thing happens in the universe,
and everything else is a manifestation of it. Uranium and lead; rocks and earth; protozoa, insects, plants, animals, and
humans; gases, planetary atmospheres, and planets as a whole; solar systems, suns, and galaxies; thoughts, emotions, and
sensationsall are manifestations of one thing, an all-pervasive, ubiquitous function called the One Law of the Absolute.

What Are the Higher Worlds Like?

What does it mean to see reality from the point of view of the One Law of the Absolute, or from that of All Worlds, All Suns,
a Sun, or a Planet (or, for that matter, from lower worlds, from the perspective of a rock or the moon)? To fully understand
their meaning, we need to have the requisite impressions, yet even from so far away as the level of understanding of
waking-sleep, and even better from the level of being awake, we can get some idea what such points of view are like.
From the point of view of waking-sleep it is, of course, most difficult, for, symbolically speaking, we have little energy 12
with which to feel higher perspectives, and depending on how asleep we are, we have none or a minuscule amount of
energy 6 with which to think from such higher perspectives. How much energy 6 we have available would depend on
whether we observe ourselves at all. If we are only a bit more observant than we have to be to survive within the biosphere,
we trigger some form of First Conscious Shock and produce some energy 6 with which to think from the point of view of
higher worlds. Yet even when in waking-sleep, we have a greater ability to comprehend higher perspectives than beings
with fewer brains, for the level of impressions such beings are capable of assimilating or understanding is lower than ours,
even when we take impressions-48 purely mechanically.
Within waking-sleep, depending how contemplative we are (in Aristotles and Confuciuss sense of the term perhaps?),
how much time and energy we spend remembering ourselves and feeling and thinking beyond the confines of our personal
Is, we can gain some impressions of higher levels of being.
We see this exhibited in some philosophers, artists, scientists, poets, and others, who, though perhaps mostly asleep,
sometimes become more contemplative than the average person and think and/or feel from higher points of view. It is
probable that some of them awaken, if only for a short time, and that the most profound philosophy, art, poetry, and science
reflects this more awakened state. According to Gurdjieff, however, the vast majority of even our most exalted philosophers,
artists, poets, and scientists are, mostly, in waking-sleep. He appears to reserve higher levels of understanding for such as
Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, Socrates, and the like.27
Sometimes a First Conscious Shock can be triggered more or less by accident, although to be in a position to utilize,

assimilate, or understand the impressions, one would have to be prepared or more generally interested in wider
perspectives than ones own Is. As an example of how this can occur, we can cite the case of Edgar Mitchell, the American
astronaut.28 When Mitchell first saw planet Earth from space, he says that he had an overwhelming, emotionally intense
experience in which he saw the absurdity of sleeping humanitys predilection for nationalism, sectarianism, and warfor, in
other words, separateness. Such a perspective strikes one as ecological, in the full sense of the word; his level of
understanding had merged with or become the point of view of the planet as a whole. Whether or not his understanding
remained at that level would depend on whether or not he developed it or worked on himself.
Within waking-sleep, certain relationships are seen naturally or automatically, such as the sense of unity one has with
members of ones family, town, state, country, and so on, that is, those who share ones religion, cultural background, race,
political viewpoints, general interests, occupation. To feel such relationships requires, apparently, sufficient psychic energy
to take impressions in mechanically and to understand them with the moving part of the intellect. To go higher, to feel all
humans as brothers and sisters, the earth as ones mother, is to become more consciousto see things from a higher
perspective than is automatic to the formatory apparatus.
Such considerations indicate the general direction understanding takes as it evolves toward higher consciousness.
Higher means more general, more unifiedwe see things more in relation, less in opposition. From the point of view of deep
waking-sleep, the world prevails in small barely related atoms: me (or the me thats present at the moment), my body, my
soul, my mind, my family, my possessions, my living, my town, my state, my country, my allies, my enemies.
That we admit of relations at all shows that even in this state of consciousness, certain kinds of unities are
comprehended. As we go lower on the scale of consciousness, we see less relatedness. When we die, our body
disintegrates into smaller pieces, and human consciousness becomes impossible. First our body as a whole disintegrates
into protozoa, thus our level of being and consciousness. Eventually the protozoa die and become earth, and our level of
being follows. Once the matter becomes rock, coal, etc., we have, it seems, reached the end of the Ray of Creation (or close
to it!).
Thats one direction we can go. As we go in the other direction and approach the level of being awake, relations become
more important. We may become more concerned with the survival of the biosphere, for example, than with the comfort of
some of our Is, and since survival of the biosphere depends, in large measure, on how its highest species behaves, we
would become concerned with the sleepy way our species carries on.
The concern, if it is a manifestation of genuine awakeness, is not a function of one center alonemerely an intellectual
concern, for example, or a matter of strong feelings alone. It would encompass the entire organism. When it does, we gain
an understanding of how to express our concern, of what to do about it. Given that, theoretically speaking, it means
awakening other human beings, we have to, first of all, make sure that we continue to work on ourselves, for if we should fall
back to sleep and not know it, then our actions would come from sleep and would not, except by chance, be evolutionary.
The point of view of waking-sleep, being more or less atomistic, reflects the energetic and psychological state of the false
personality. We are not unified but consist of many Is. Our energy is blocked by buffers and so does not flow throughout our
organism and fill all parts of the centers with the proper energetic densities. Therefore, we take in impressions with
unconnected Is and think, feel, and sense the world in unconnected atoms. As the Is melt, the buffers dissolve, and our
organism becomes more unified because the flow of energy into the centers is more unified. We thus see, feel, and think of
reality as more related.
The key to becoming and staying awake, then, is melting the buffers. Should we have impressions of higher perspectives,
should impressions from the higher centers enter, and yet we remain buffered, we will not be able to assimilate the
impressions; we will not be able to understand them. For this reason, what we would do, how we would act, even if we think
our actions are based on higher awareness, would not and could not actually be based on it. This is why, from Gurdjieffs
point of view, so many would-be reformers of the human race fail to achieve their aims even though they may have, as it is
said, good intentions.
The person with good intentions but with buffers still in place takes action based on impressions of greater relatedness
but, because of the buffers, doesnt see that his or her actions may be leading to precisely the reverse of what is intended.
The octave, in other words, is not shocked by conscious impressions, turns at the interval, and goes off in a different direction
while we remain oblivious of this change.
How often do the actions of inspired social reformers, for example, lead to consequences directly opposed to what they
had intended? How often do the published works of writers and the products of artists of all kinds lead to involutionary
consequences even though the producer had lofty ideals? As we study biographies of those whose research led to the
discovery of nuclear power, for example, we discover that among them were good people, idealists who loved science and
tried to live by its precepts of objectivity, close observation of phenomena, investigation, open-mindedness, etc. Yet like a
child who had the wonderful idea to climb the tree but didnt consider how he would get down and fell on his head in the
process, these scientists, as they now peruse the consequences of their research, must look up from the ground and cry out,
My God, what have I wrought! unless they are so buffered as to fail to see what they have wrought or to feel responsibility
for their actions. (These days, one wonders in a similar vein about another recent and powerful tool/weapon, the liberating
computer and its child, the Internet.)

A Fly in the Ointment

From Gurdjieffs point of view, we in waking-sleep would do better and would better serve the world (all worlds) if we first
worked on ourselves to dissolve the buffers before trying anything grander. Yet we have to make a living, and we have our
talents, our inclinations. Can we be expected to refrain from utilizing them until the buffers have been removed? Can a
filmmaker be expected to refrain from making films, a novelist from writing novels, a painter from painting pictures, a teacher
from teaching, a scientist from doing research until the buffers are removed? Does this mean that our efforts, with all our
good intentions, will continue to cement the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer?
We could try to find a way to dissolve the buffers, and if we were successful even to a small degree, our understanding
would evolve, and the products of our labor would become less involutionary, less of a factor in the continued buildup of the
said consequences. They might even become evolutionary, if we persist, or at least they might become harmless. The
question then becomes how do we go about this? How do we begin the process of buffer dissolution? Is it strictly a matter of
beginning to observe oneself? Maybe so, but there is the thorny problem that as long as buffers are firmly in place, we barely
have sufficient energy to make a living, to keep from completely alienating our children, to stay sober, etc., no less to take
time and energy to practice self-observation.
So there it is, another apparently unsolvable dilemma: we need to observe ourselves to melt the buffers, but because of
the buffers, we have not the energy to observe ourselves. We need, then, a push. We need individuals who are not buffered
(or as buffered) to help us see the manifestations of our buffers and then help us begin the process of dissolution. Because
of the metaphorical nature of the concept of buffers, however, it becomes largely a matter of opinion as to precisely what they
are. This means we have no concrete way of determining who still has them and who does not.
One sees this, for example, in the field of psychology, where different schools of thought have different ideas as to what
constitutes psychological health and therefore what changes need to be made and how to stimulate them. Because he could
not discover what defense mechanisms are in a concrete sense, Freud, for example, as we shall see, continued to alter his
concept of psychological health throughout his career, and this has continued in the field of psychology ever since.
Psychological health remains a poorly understood concept and a matter of debate among psychologists and psychiatrists
because, I think (my thinking is based on Reichs research, of course), it is not grounded in a concrete understanding.
Similar problems prevail in the various esoteric traditions where different teachers and gurus claim to have reached higher
consciousness, yet the would-be student has no way to determine the validity of the claims. From Gurdjieffs point of view,
this is not a good situation. Psychological health (and disease), for him, is a matter of fact, not opinion, and the Fourth Way is
supposed to be a way of knowledge, not belief.
Gurdjieff, however, is dead, and so whatever personal help he may have provided his students is no longer available.
Can we gain such knowledge from his writings and the writings of his students alone? But Gurdjieff taught in allegories and
symbols, and we, in our sleepiness, are supposed to understand what he meant? He doesnt say much in his writings what
buffers are in a concrete sense. Are there other sources that can inform us as to what buffers are in a way that the notion can
be grounded in concrete, experimental proof that even sleepy beings like ourselves can comprehend? We will explore this
further in part 2 and passim.

Absolute Consciousness
Formation of higher-being bodies within the physical body, for Gurdjieff, is not the end of possible evolution. The higher
bodies, it is said, can continue to work on themselves after the death of the physical body to eventually reach the level of
being of the Absolute. In Beelzebubs Tales, Gurdjieff portrays souls, apparently crystallized on planets by three-brained
beings like ourselves, abiding on what is called the Holy Planet Purgatory, where they must continue to practice the work if
they wish to evolve beyond the level of being of a sun.29
Whether this should be taken literally or not at present is not our concern. Gurdjieff transmits this idea, to begin with, so
that he can (at least) provide a perspective on creation in general and show us what is possible in terms of evolution. At the
same time, via this idea, we are told that we are not as close to the perspective of the Absolute or God as we sometimes like
to think. The message is that before we can hope to reach a level of understanding that is anywhere near that of absolute
understanding, weve got to first learn to dig a good ditchto see out sleepiness.

Relativity and the Law of Three

On the symbol of the Ray of Creation, the most general law is the One Law of the Absolute. The next most general laws
are said to be the laws of Seven and Three. Together, the three most general laws form the laws of All Worlds, from which all
other laws are said to emanate. The Law of Seven, as we have seen, is the law of processthat every process follows the
pattern of an octave of some kind and requires inputs of energy at certain points to continue in the direction it began. This
law is given the name Heptaparaparshinokh in Beelzebubs Tales.30 The Law of Three is the law of actualization, entity,
cosmic concentrationthat every entity is a product of three forces: a positive force (Holy Affirming), a negative force
(Holy Denying), and a neutralizing force (Holy Reconciling). The law itself is called Triamazikamno in Beelzebubs
Tales.31
Positive or first force can be thought of as desire, impetus, push, expansion, reaching out. In patriarchal societies, it is
usually conceived of as male; in the Chinese version, as yang. Negative or second force can be thought of as resistance (to
desire), obstacle (to impetus), opportunity (with no obstacle, there would be nothing to desire), contraction, absorption,

acceptance. In patriarchal societies, it is usually conceived of as female; in the Chinese version, yin.
The Principle of Relativity functions in regard to this law in the following essential way: the forces are not conceived of as
absolutely positive, absolutely negative, or absolutely neutralizing, but relatively so, or in relation to one another. Nothing is,
therefore, positive, negative, or neutralizing in itself, but only in relation to something else, in the context of the relation. In
that this concept is deeply rooted in antiquity in Chinain the time of the legendary Sage Kings, which is prehistorical and
thought to have been around 10,000 BC or beforeit is worth discussing from the Chinese point of view for a moment. Yin
and yang are contrasted, relatively, as two sides of Tao or the One, and everything in the universe is thought of as a product
of the mixing of yin and yang. The primary meaning of yang is light; the Chinese take it to mean heaven (or the higher
worlds), male, positive, impetus, time, the sun, warmth, etc. The primary meaning of yin is darkness; the Chinese take it to
mean Earth (or the lower worlds), female, negative, resistance, space, the moon, cold, etc.32 The procession of the seasons,
as mentioned, is seen as a movement from yang (summer), to less yang and some yin (fall), to yin (winter), to less yin and
some yang (spring), and so on.
It is impossible to say if the categories would have been reversed had they been developed within matriarchal culture, but
they are not supposed to entail differences in value. Yang is positive, male, or high in relation to Yin, and Yin negative,
female, or low in relation to Yang, but neither is supposed to be better or more valuable than the other. They are equal in
terms of value for without one there cannot be the other, nor can there be Tao (or anything else). They have their character,
in other words, relatively, in relation to one another. When Yang becomes too Yang, when it reaches the extreme of Yang, it
becomes Yin, and vice versa. A particular entity is either Yang or Yin in relation to another and not absolutely or in itself (as
mentioned regarding Gurdjieffs rendition of the three forces) and may be Yang in relation to one entity and Yin in relation to
another (even at the same moment). (The fact remains that Chinese culture has, during historical times, traditionally been
male dominated. Women were and still are, in many respects, treated as second-class citizens, which indicates that the
Chinese, like nearly all people, often fail to incorporate their greatest wisdom into their lives.)33
Third force, the principle that neutralizes Yin and Yang, can be seen as change, movement, or pulsation.34 This principle,
as mentioned, is conceived (by some) to be within Tao (manifest unity) and even within Wu Chi (unmanifest unity or
nothingness). Gurdjieff does not define third force specifically as change or movement but merely says that it neutralizes or
reconciles first and second force. For Gurdjieff, the three forces in combination produce all thingsin conjunction with the
Law of Sevenand when they combine, they issue in a child, a result of their merger, a cosmic concentration, entity, or a
fourth.

Merging the Laws of Three and Seven

All processes, as represented by the Law of Seven (presented in the form or symbol of the octave), begin with DO. As the
originator, the impetus, DO stands as first force. To reach completion, all processes must, figuratively speaking (and
sometimes literally speaking), move through something, some form of resistance or obstacle. Whatever a specific DO must
move through to pass on to RE is second force in relation to it.
In order to pass through or overcome the resistance, the DO, so to speak, must think up a strategy or develop a method.
The method, strategy, or apparatus it develops to overcome the resistance of second force is what neutralizes the two forces
and serves as third force.
Let us take some examples. An airplane is designed to fly through the atmosphere. Its desire (in a manner of speaking) is
to fly. It must move through the atmosphere and against gravity (resistances). If there were no resistances, no second force, it
would simply . . . take off! But then if it could take off, there would be no need to design the airplane in any particular way, for
everything would just take off, which means there would be no need for the desire to fly (first force). This, we would say, is
magic. Magic (Gurdjieff is quoted on this somewhere) means not under lawor if no resistance, no need for impetus, and
is the stuff of dreams and fantasies. In real life, second force exists, laws exist, obstacles exist, thus desire exists, or first
force.
A seed (we could say) desires to sprout. To do so, it must move through the earth (second force). A planet (we could say)
desires to rotate in space, and space (or whatever forces prevail as obstacles to the rotation) resists it. A lover desires to
mate but must overcome the resistance of the other. Every desire, every impetus, has its resistancethat which it must go
through or overcome to achieve its aim.
To speak of airplanes, seeds, planets, etc., as having desires and aims, of course, is to speak metaphorically or
anthropomorphically. All that is meant is that first, second, and third force prevail everywhere. On the other hand, via the
Principle of Relativity, desires and aims, as we know them, are functions rooted in the common functioning principle of, for
Gurdjieff, etherokrilno, which means that they occur, in some form, on every level of being or with respect to every cosmos.
Speaking anthropomorphically, then, although considered a faux pas in sciencebut not in literature, poetry, etc.is
expressive of a fundamental truth: the Principle of Relativity.
The relativity of the three forces is exhibited when we consider the same situation from a different perspective: from the
atmospheres and gravitys point of view (we could say), the airplane resists their desires, in the case of atmospheric current,
to flow as it flows and, in the case of gravity (how should we put it?), to pull as it pulls. In order to maintain its desire, the
atmosphere (so to speak) must work its way around the moving airplane, whereas gravity, to achieve its aim, must yield to
the airplanes push. From the point of view of the earth, the seed is the resisting force, for its desire (we could say) is to settle

comfortably, but the seeds desire to sprout resists its desire and forces it to separate or move over. From the point of view of
the other, the lovers desire is its resistance, which is not to say that what functions as resistance or second force always
fights, argues, or . . . resists! Resistances sometimes yield. Still the relationship of the forces is relative and depends upon
point of view. My desire can be your obstacle, and your desire my obstacle.
Third force can be thought of as the vehicle, method, strategy, or, in Gurdjieffs terms, apparatus that serves to overcome
resistance and satisfy desire.35 Third force, regarding the airplanes desire to fly, can be seen as the design of the airplane,
which we can symbolize as the wings. As is evident in this example, the wings use the atmosphere to satisfy the airplanes
desire to fly. (Gravity is also used in the design of the airplane in terms of necessary speed and angle of takeoff, etc.) The
general truth exhibited is the relationship between the three forces: third force uses second force to satisfy first force.
In the case of the sprouting seed, third force can be conceived of as the design of the roots and stalk that enables them to
work their way through the earth and use it to gain nourishment. In this case, the design is Natures/Gods (as Spinoza would
say). In the case of the lovers, the one with the impetus to mate must devise a strategy or an apparatus to overcome the
resistance of the other (which, like all resistances, as mentioned, may be more or less intense). This example of third force,
we could say, is the oldest game in the book (or is it world, I forget).
To begin to write a poem (to sound the note DO in the writing of the poem), a would-be poet must figure out a way to use
what resists the poems simply appearing in the world magically, as it were. He or she may simply require a pen and paper,
a simple problem for most poets today. Ancient would-be poets may have had to make a chisel and hammer out of resisting
forces such as rock, metal, wood, etc., and then carve the poem on a cave wall. Or perhaps they had to peel bark from a tree,
dry it, etc., and find or create a writing medium to transcribe the poem.
The modern poet has other problems. Let us say he or she wishes to publish the poems. Obstacles to this desire prevail
in the form of the publishing industry, editors, etc. Third force might be an agent, the poet periodically sending out poems,
and so on. Each step along the octave of getting the poems published is another note and requires impetus, is made in the
face of resistances, and requires a method of use of the resistances, guided by the desire to become actualized, to bear fruit.
It is in this sense that every actualization is a result of three forces.

Octaves Within Octaves

In the Law of Seven (presented in the form of the octave) is symbolized the idea that every desire or impetus can be
defeated at an interval by the medium through which it must pass. The intervals within the octave represent resistance
points, but every note, to sound, must overcome resistances. In this respect, the sounding of each note involves an octave
(or more than one).36 Octaves prevail within the notes of larger, more inclusive octaves.
If a person desires to earn a bachelors degree, for example, the required notes that must sound in that octave can be
conceived of as spaced out over the time needed to obtain the degreefour years, let us say. The first note of the octave
might be applying to a college. Within this note are other octaves; the person has to write to colleges to obtain information
and application forms, pick colleges that seem best to satisfy the desires, fill out the forms and send them in, obtain the
necessary funds to pay application fees, etc.
Within each of these notes of the inner octave of the first note of the larger one are other octaves. Let us pick one of them
filling out the forms. In order to do this, the person might have to obtain records from high school, think about what to say
and write or type legibly, and so on. Each of these notes contains inner octaves as well of course (which is not to imply that
one could go on infinitely with this). At any point along the way, one of the smaller octaves can turn and die, which would
entail the death of the larger octave and the failure to achieve the original desire.

The Law of Three and Formatory Thinking

To avoid defeat, then, to overcome the resistance of the medium, a new stimulus toward the same aim must be given:
what Gurdjieff via his symbol system calls a shock. With respect to the octave in which the shock functions as a shock, it
functions as third force, as the apparatus that helps to overcome the resistance and satisfy the aim.
The relativity of functions, however, is exhibited when the same element is looked at from a different point of view: the
shock that serves to neutralize first and second force, as a shock, also begins its own octave and so functions as a DO, as
first force. In another context, or from another point of view, the note that functioned as a shock or third force in one context
and as DO or first force in another functions as second force: it is what the octave in which the note functions as third force
must have for the octave to continue in the original direction.
A sum of money, for example, functions as third force when it allows the desire to send ones child to college for a year to
become actualized. The money overcomes the resistance of the collegeit opens the doors of the college to your child. The
same sum of money functions as second force in that it must be accumulated for the desire to be satisfied, and the money
functions as first force in that the need to accumulate it serves as the origination of other octaves, as their DO.
This illustrates how the Principle of Relativity functions with respect to the Law of Three: the three forces are positive,
negative, or neutralizing only in relation to one another and function differently depending on perspective or situation. To
comprehend this law, to follow this line of thoughtand to keep it in mindrequires one to consider the forces
nonformatorily, to use parts of the intellectual center other than the moving part alone when thinking about the law. An
obstacle (second force) to thinking in this way is the habit of thinking only with the formatory center, thinking only

calculatively, or in binary form, a habit that Beelzebub constantly reminds us is peculiar to the three-brained beings on Earth
(who are usually in waking-sleep). To overcome this obstacle, first of all, requires a strong desire to understand reality in its
entirety and, secondly, the development of an apparatus to overcome the resistance of the habit, or the ability, through
practice of the work and study of the ideas, to think with the rest of the intellect.37

The Law of Three and the Desire to Eat

The Law of Three, as a most general law, naturally plays a part in the process of food transformation. Hunger, for
example, can be seen as desire to eat (first force). In order to fulfill this desire, a medium must be overcome: perhaps one
must leave ones tent and forage for berries or herbs, or hunt. To hunt requires development of skill and creation of
weapons. This, too, is a desire, and resistances to it must be overcome (making a bow and arrow, developing the reflexes to
overcome moving water to catch a fish). In each case, what functions as third force is what is designed to overcome the
resistance and use it to fulfill the desire.
In the modern world, hunting is shopping. To fulfill the desire to eat requires, let us say, leaving the suburban home,
driving to the supermarket, finding the right plastic-covered package. Each step in the octave is a note and so involves all
three forces. Some resistances are easily overcome, some not. Before shopping, we must have money, another obstacle. To
fulfill the desire for money, we must get a job or sell something. In the first case, one must have a talent or capacity that can
be used by an employer, another obstacle to be overcome, possibly by schooling (and all the notes it involves).
The desire to drive a car also involves overcoming resistances. The car must be there in the first place, which means we
need money to purchase it, which involves getting a job, etc. Also there must be automobile manufacturers that make the
car, inventors who invented it, dealers who sell, an economy in which a means of exchange exists, and so on. Then the car
must be in working order, and we need fuel, which requires all the octaves involved with developing fuel from oil (if its
gasoline) as well as our need for (again) money. The car itself, like the airplane, must pass through various media to get to
the supermarket, such as the air, the roads, other drivers, construction crews, weather conditions, the highway patrol, etc.
Then there is the supermarket. It must have the food, which involves a whole cosmos of impetus, resistances, and
apparatus: an owner who pays the rent, buys the food from the distributor through salespeople who have to get to work,
owns trucks, hires drivers, buys the food from the farmer or, these days, from the corporation that grows the foodwhich
needs land, fertilizer, good weather, seeds, workers, machines, gasoline . . . and, of course, money. All this, and more, is
what must be overcome in the modern world just to fulfill the desire to eat. (I hope you are at least chuckling now . . . I find
this very funny.)
Then there are the obstacles that must be overcome in digesting food, in breathing, in taking in impressions, and so on. In
waking-sleep, however, we usually notice obstacles only when third force is not automatically present or easily available
and then we bitch about itsuch as when we cannot find a job, obtain gasoline or a good car, if the subway or bus breaks
down, or we become ill and cannot go out to shop; if we suffer digestive problems, have an asthmatic attack, suffer an injury
to one of our senses, etc. From this perspective, waking up means paying attention, or studying the forces, to how various
notes function as the different forces in situations. For Gurdjieff, this is particularly necessary regarding third force, for, in his
opinion, waking-sleep is characterized by third force blindness.38 Being third force blind, though, means, as well, being blind
to all of the forces, being blind to the functioning of the Law of Three and all that it entails.

Reminding Factors
To say that culture keeps us asleep is to identify the general prevalence of culture as second force in relation to the desire
to work on oneself and evolve in consciousness. The power that societys sleepiness has on anyones interest in awakening
is immense and cannot be appreciated unless one attempts to awaken. Third force to overcome this obstacle is provided by
ourselves when we remember the ideas of the work and our aim to awaken. Waking-sleeping culture, like second force
generally, can be used in developing third force for the work. Every sleeping face one sees (especially ones own) and every
manifestation of humanitys blindness or lack of contact with the essential (including ones own) can act as a shock to the
octave of ones work on oneself, as, in other words, a reminding factor.39
For culture to serve this function, we must see it clearly for what it is, which means paying attention to it and to ourselves
beyond what is necessary for survival and enjoyment, beyond what is habitual for usbeyond what is needed to purchase
the correct food, do our jobs properly, drive a car without accident, and even beyond what we normally consider in the
interests of culture. It means being contemplative while being practical, thinking from the higher parts of the intellect and
feeling from the higher parts of the emotional center while thinking and feeling automatically. It means, as it is sometimes
put, being in the world but not of it.
To overcome the resistances of cultural sleepiness and ones own sleepiness requires a great deal of first and third force.
We need a strong wish to awaken 40 and methods of overcoming the many Is, buffers, and what Gurdjieff calls A influences,
the influences of social life that lull us to sleep. The tools of the work can serve this function, tools such as self-observation,
self-remembering, the practice of nonidentification, and so on. To keep the wish is not easy, for the desires of sleeping
humanity and those of our own Is resist such a wish. Thus we must regularly remember our aims and shock the wish-octave
into continuing.
Accidents sometimes help as when we sleepily create a mess and become disgusted at or ashamed (feel what Gurdjieff
calls remorse) of our state of sleepiness. But we will soon go back to sleep once the mess is rectified if we have no other

apparatuses available. Accidents, in other words, cannot be counted on to take us very far. They may kindle a new octave of
work practice, but if, when it reaches its interval, another accident does not occur at the right time, the octave dies.
Formation of an observing or working I is formation of a consistent source of first and third force, a consistent reminding
factor for the aim of the work. Formation of a Higher Emotional Body (and any of the higher-being bodies), understood
literally or merely psychologically, is crystallization or structuralization of such a reminding factor that functions more or less
automatically to provide third force for the work since it brings in impressions of unity that consistently remind us who we
really are. To say that it functions more or less automatically is merely to indicate what happens when structures formthe
digestive system, for example, more or less automatically takes care of the function of digestion just as the respiratory system
takes care of respiration. We must say more or less automatically, however, since something can go wrong with the
structurethe digestive or respiratory systems can break down from misuse as can, presumably, a Higher Emotional Body.
Maintenance and care, in other words, are needed to keep a function working properly.

The Need for Practice

An observing or working I is not, according to Gurdjieffs teaching (as far as I can tell), a crystallized structure such as a
body or an organ as such but a function of freely moving and transforming energy-essence within the organism. To maintain
its integrity, therefore, requires a great deal of attention for there is nothing automatic about it. On the other hand, like any
skill, it can be developed, and one can gain proficiency over time. The beginning potter usually has a great deal of trouble
centering the clay on the wheel while the experienced potter can do so more easily. Still, to maintain the ability to center
requires practice.41
Each activity has different requirements in terms of maintenance of skill. Once one learns to ride a bicycle or drive a car,
the ability to overcome resistance usually remains intact without practice. This is because to carry out these activities
properly requires only a small part of usthe moving center and formatory apparatus, let us say. A concert pianist, however,
must practice a great deal to maintain the ability to play at performance level, an indication that the skill requires use of many
more parts of centers.
Learning to think nonformatorily is a skill requiring much practice. Heidegger says, regarding meditative thinking, that it is
more difficult to develop and maintain than any craft.42 Working against the resistances that weigh heavily on ones desire to
develop a working I, perhaps, is the most difficult skill of all to master, for the influences are all-pervasive, expressed by
nearly everyone, every product and every institution. They are also within us in the form of the buffers.
The ultimate resisting force or obstacle, in some respects, is death. Various religions tell us that even this obstacle can be
overcome in one way or another or to some extentby carrying out the practices that will take one to samadhi or nirvana
(some think of this in terms of another life or getting off the wheel of birth and death altogether), by believing in Christ or
practicing the sacraments and going to heaven, by belonging to the covenant (here the idea is to overcome the death of the
people, not necessarily the individual person), or by saying, Allah is the only God, and Muhammad is His prophet at least
once in ones lifetime (and sincerely). Contemporary science tends to deny that death can be overcome but tends to think of
the overcoming of death in terms of postponing it as long as possible by developing new drugs, surgical techniques, and so
on. But, as Gurdjieff says, contemporary science, or science of new formation,43 sees things only in twos, thinks formatorily,
and fails to consider third forcein this context, the possibility of evolution upward of consciousness.
From the point of view of what he calls objective science, however, various apparatuses or carriers of third force for the
work can be developed to overcome literal or psychological death, viz, the higher-being bodies, although even these
bodies, for Gurdjieff, like every cosmic concentration, eventually die. Can this theory, taken literally or psychologically, be
verified? Gurdjieff says that it can but that to reach a position where we can verify it is to reach a position where we can taste
it. In regard to this theory, nothing else will suffice in terms of reaching a position of verification than actual creation of the
pudding.

Notes
1. BT, p. 11.
2. ISM, pp. 77-81, 89, 122, 134.
3. Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking (New York: Harper Colophon Books, Harper & Row, 1956), p. 82 and passim.
4. EGD, passim.
5. Rodney Collin, The Theory of Eternal Life (New York: Weiser, 1974), p. 98.
6. BT, pp. 342-6, 623, and passim.
7. Dhiravamsa, A New Approach to Buddhism (Lower Lake, California: The Dawn Horse Press, 1974), p. 51.
8. BT, p. 342.
9. TS.
10.

Dhiravamsa, for example, says that sex must eventually be given up. In this opinion he represents the majority of
religious and esoteric teachings.

11. See, for example, Harold P. Simonson (ed.), Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Ungar, 1970), passim.
12. ISM, pp. 82-6, 137-40, 167-9, 305; VFRW, pp. 196-7; ASGT, pp. 101ff.
13. John Burnett, Early Greek Philosophy (New York: World Publishing, 1957), pp. 197-250.
14. Ibid., pp. 169-196, 130-168.
15.

See, Plato, The Republic, in Hamilton and Cairns (eds.), Collected Dialogues (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1961), pp. 743ff.

16. See, Plotinus, The Enneads (London: Faber and Faber, mcmxvii), pp. 64ff.
17. Shabaz Britton Best (ed.), Genesis Revised (Farnham, England: Sufi Publishing Company, 1964), pp. 11-12.
18. See, BT, pp. 28, 68-75, 82-91, 128, 1105-6, and passim.
19.

Wing-Tsit Chan, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963), p.
269.

20. Jou Tsung Hwa, The Tao of Tai Chi Chuan (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1980), pp. 77-115.
21. BT, pp. 139, 569, and passim.
22. Rodney Collin, The Theory of Celestial Influence (New York: Weiser, 1975).
23. ISM, pp. 31-2, 40-44, 54, 180, 197, 255-6. Gurdjieff says that the Soul is immortal within the solar system, indicating that
immortality and survival of a body in a specific lifetime are different functions for Gurdjieff. Humans, for example, live on
the surface of a planet but are immortal with respect to the planets geospherefrom dust ye come, unto dust ye return
and the Soul can survive or live a lifetime in the atmosphere of a sun but is immortal with respect to the atmosphere of
the solar system, meaning that nothing within the solar system can destroy it. Such immortality, of course, is not what
one seeks since it pertains solely to the grosser elements, the denser energetic components of the body.
24. Rodney Collin, The Theory of Celestial Influence, op. cit., pp. 49-63.
25. BT, pp. 136-7, and passim.
26. VFRW, p. 205.
27. BT, passim.
28.

Edgar D. Mitchell, Psychic Research as a Religious Quest, in Needleman, Bierman, and Gould (eds.), Religion For a
New Generation (New York: Macmillan (2nd ed.), 1977), pp. 110-125. See also Russell Schweicharts remarks quoted
on the cover of Missa Gaia Earth Mass, an album by Paul Winter (Litchfield, Connecticut: Living Music Records). The
following remarks of William Irwin Thompson define the concept of ecological consciousness rather succinctly: The
science of ecology is a science, not of material objects, but living relationships. It is also a science of the rediscovery of
mythic insights. Eco means home; logos means word; ecology is the homeword science. We go back to our ancient
home to rediscover in the language of science what we once knew in the language of myth. Ecology is thus the science
of reconciliation, a science of the healing of culture with nature, of the word with the home, of thought with the body. At
its highest, ecology is a resacralization of science, a new vision of the relationship of the unique part with the Universal
Whole. (See Missa Gaia Earth Mass.)

29. BT, pp. 744-810.

30. BT, pp. 470ff, 750ff, 813-70.
31. BT, pp. 744ff; MM, pp. 56ff; ASGT, pp. 99-114, 135, 173-6.

32. Wing-Tsit Chan, op. cit., pp. 244-50.

33.

Kenneth Scott Lataurette, The Chinese, Their History and Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1968 [4th ed.]), pp. 574-6,
599-600. See also Fox Butterfield, China, Alive in the Bitter Sea (New York: Times Books, 1982), pp. 163-70.

34.

See Richard Wilhelm (trans.), I Ching (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950); also Jou Tsung Hwa,
op. cit.

35. BT, pp. 144, 571, 763, 774-5, 780-97.

36. VFRW, p. 201.
37. Ibid., p. 196 for more on the relation of the three forces.
38. ISM, pp. 77-89, 122, 134.
39. VFRW, p. 241.
40. TS, p. 2ff; VFRW, p. 247.
41.

See M. C. Richards, Centering in Pottery (Poetry and the Person, Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press,
1964).

42. Heidegger, op. cit., Funeral Oration.

43. BT, pp. 142, 835, 859.

PART II
Sex
The role of the sex center in creating . . . a permanent center of gravity can be very big, . . . if it uses its own energy, the sex
center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. This alone would indicate a comparatively high level of being.
G. I. Gurdjieff in P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous

CHAPTER ONE
Gurdjieff on Sex
The Sex Center and the Evolution of Consciousness

Gurdjieff makes it clear that he believes a healthy sex life is of fundamental importance for the process of spiritual
evolution. He is quoted as having said, for example, that those whose sexual lives are governed by constantly working
buffers, fears, and strange tastes must eliminate them if they wish to get far in the work.1
Regarding the function of the sex center, Gurdjieff says that it plays a crucial role in creating a general equilibrium, a
balanced working of the centers, a condition that can occur only when the centers work with the energetic density proper to
them. The sex center, for Gurdjieff, also plays a central part in forming a permanent center of gravity, a notion that refers to
a permanent I, a function of a unified psyche.
But a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity are the very tsimis or essence of what it means to be
awake and thus are necessary for any of the higher-being bodies to become crystallized. This is why Gurdjieff can say that
when the sex center works properly, it represents the chief possibility of liberation.2
According to Gurdjieff, when the sex center works properly, all the other centers are able to work with their own energy.
The sex center, he says, is as important for evolution as the higher emotional center and utilizes energy at the same density
as this center, and when healthy sexually, a person is already at a relatively high level of consciousness.3 Regarding the
way the sex center works, he says that it is stronger and quicker than the other centers. Regarding its relationship to the
buffers, he says that buffers can stop the normal manifestation of the sex center but they cannot destroy its energy.4
Buffers, in other words, can prevent a person, on one hand, from feeling sexually excited or, on the other, from
experiencing sexual gratification in complete orgasm, a notion to be further explored via Reich. But the energy that is utilized
by the sex center, even if not excited or released, remains within the body, becoming energy that actually bolsters or
strengthens the buffers. Our study of Reich will show that this is the energy out of which the buffersin Reichs terms, the
armorare actually created.
When we are in waking-sleep, our sex center does not work properlyour buffers prevent this. Our sexual lives are
characterized by what Gurdjieff calls a misuse of sex. The sex center then utilizes energy of the other centersit borrows
this energyand the other centers utilize the energy of the sex center. Such a misuse of sex energy for Gurdjieff is a kind of
sexual perversion. For example, he says that when we congregate at parties, in church, at political conventions, and so on,
the unspoken, underlying purpose is for sexual titillationthat is, we seek excitation without gratification, which ultimately
leads to frustration. Most social intercourse (among sleeping humans), according to Gurdjieff, actually functions in this way.

Sex Energy
Gurdjieff does not elucidate, in concrete, biophysical, or bioenergetic terms, the nature of sex energy. In Beelzebubs
Tales, there are symbolic references to it.5
What can be said is that, in Gurdjieffs system, sex energy, or the form of energy that vibrates at the energetic density that
is properly utilized by the sex center, is a relatively fine form of energy. In other words, sex energy (energy 12) is an energy
that exists at a relatively excited state; it is conceived of as vibrating twice as fast as the energy of the moving center (energy
24) and four times as fast as the energy of the intellect (energy 48).6 Because of its high vibrational quality, this energy has
the potential to bring in very subtle impressions, impressions of the same density as those of the higher emotional center.7 It
can, in other words, attract an extremely rarefied form of food.
As mentioned earlier, for Gurdjieff, each of the foods functions to stimulate energy already present within the organism
and transform it into finer energies. The foods function as shocks. They are said to mix with energy within the organism at
the same level of energetic density as the foods themselves. For example, physical food mixes with certain digestive juices
at the same energetic density as the food, air mixes with cellular energy at the same energetic density as it is, and
impressions-48 mix with intellectual energy at its level. This mixing, for Gurdjieff, functions as a stimulus to further evolution
of the energies.

Sex Energy and the Higher Emotional Body

The impressions of the sex center, qua impressions, also, of course, function as food, which mixes with energy already
present within the organism. Gurdjieff claims, in fact, as we have seen, that it is energy at the level of density of sex energy
that functions as the energy that brings about crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body. That is the experience referred to
as the Second Conscious Shock. Thus the impressions of the sex center, when it works with sex energy, function as the
food, the shock that brings about the conditions necessary for crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body. This is another
way of understanding what Gurdjieff means when he says that the proper use of the sex center represents the chief
possibility of liberation, for it is via formation of the Higher Emotional Body that liberation is actualized in its initial concrete,
crystallized state. The Higher Emotional Body represents the liberated self in its first state of liberation or evolution beyond

that of the physical body in waking-sleep.

Gurdjieff is quoted as having said that sex energy is the matter with which sex works and which sex manufactures. It is
seed or fruit.8 As the finest energy produced from the transformation of first-being food, it functions as the fruit of physical
food. As the energy utilized in the Second Conscious Shock for formation of the first higher-being body, it functions as this
bodys seed.
How does energy at the level of sex energy function as the seed of the Higher Emotional Body? Gurdjieff says that for
crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body to take place, the cells of the physical body must become saturated with the
energy. Once the proper saturation point is reached, he says, crystallization of the body occurs.9 Our study of Reich will
indicate that this idea is more than just a compelling metaphor.
Taken together, the ideas we have discussed in this chapter point to the following process: self-observation and selfremembering, the First Conscious Shock, leads to a certain level of energetic density, a fine level in comparison with the rest
of the energy used by the organism. Then via the Second Conscious Shock, even more subtle impressions are taken in.
These impressions interact with the energy already within the organism at the energetic level of these impressions, namely,
sex energy, to produce the energy necessary for formation of the Higher Emotional Body. By a process yet to be defined, the
functioning of the Second Conscious Shock causes the cells of the physical body to become saturated with this very fine
energy, and when the cells are saturated properly, the Higher Emotional Body crystallizes.
For a deeper comprehension of the process of the formation of the Higher Emotional Body, we need to understand how
the Second Conscious Shock functions to saturate the cells of the physical body with sex energy. In his writings, however,
Gurdjieff does not explain this process. Nor can we find any accounting in the writings of his students and followers.
Students of Gurdjieffs ideas are thus in a difficult predicament. We are told that a fundamental principle of the Fourth Way is
that nothing should be taken on faith alone, that every idea must be verified, and that practice of the work should be
undertaken with understanding of what the practice involves. Gurdjieff provides the necessary information regarding the First
Conscious Shock but not regarding the second. His remarks concerning this shock may indicate that he thought the
information was too hot for the students he was working with at the time.10
After studying Reich for many years and working with people utilizing Reichs and Gurdjieffs ideas, I can understand
why. As Reich used to say about the sex function (what he called genitality in general), everyone is scared of it. Dont go
near itdont touch it! Thats how people feel, and as we go more deeply into Reich, I think the reason for this will become
apparent. At this point, all I wish to say is that, in general, people are afraid of going too deeply into sexuality because it is a
function that has been severely repressed, tampered with, and twisted over many centuries. Our fears regarding it are thus
deeply ingrained in most contemporary cultures and individuals.
Gurdjieff says that the Second Conscious Shock involves the transmutation of emotions and, further, that the practice of
nonexpression of negative emotions is preparation for the triggering of this shock, but he does not define in more concrete
terms the nature of the energysex energyinvolved. Nor does he say how the centers, and particularly the sex center,
function in relation to the shock. Let us then turn to a study of Wilhelm Reichs work to gain a better understanding of the
sexual function before returning to the ideas presented thus far.

Notes
1. ISM, p. 257.
2. Ibid., pp. 255-9.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., pp. 55, 258-9.
5. BT, pp. 275ff, 813-70.
6. ISM, pp. 170-97, 255-9.
7. Ibid., p. 259.
8. Ibid., p. 255.
9. Ibid., p. 256.
10. Ibid., p. 191.

CHAPTER TWO
Orgastic Potency
A Gap in Psychoanalytical Theory

The discoveries of Wilhelm Reich are rooted in the discoveries and theories of Sigmund Freud. Because of this, a short
summary of the aspects of Freuds work that are most relevant to Reichs is necessary:
Freud began analyzing patients in the 1880s, and by 1905 his theories of emotional illness were well grounded in clinical
experience.1 His fundamental discovery was the sexual etiology of the neuroses, that neuroses are due to disturbances in
sexual functioning. His formation of this hypothesis by 1892 was due to clinical experiences in which he had found that
patients who had suffered from neuresthenia and analogous neuroses always suffered from disturbances in their sexuality.2
Earlier in his career, Freud had believed that those who had claimed that hysteria was caused by sexual disturbances had
overestimated the role of sexuality.3 Even at that time, however, he had recognized that sexual dysfunction played an
important part in the etiology of hysteria.4 By 1892, Freud had come to the conclusion that interference in healthy sexuality
was the most important etiological factor in cerebral neurasthenia 5 and in anxiety neurosis.6
Hysteria in women, Freud concluded, was due to their having to hold back sexual excitation when their men were
impotent during intercourse.7 Anxiety neuroses in general, he believed, were due to damming up of psychical sexual
tension. He viewed the symptoms as expressions of the transformation of the accumulated sexual tension.8 At the same time,
he postulated that psychoses and epilepsy were due to sexual abuse of infants prior to fifteen to eighteen months old.9
As Reich points out,1 0 these theories of Freuds were based on the theories of Josef Breuer, who had claimed, before
Freud, that sexual disturbance is the cause of all neuroses.11 Breuer had believed that the sexual instinct is the most
powerful source of the neuroses,12 that neuroses were due to an accumulation of tension,13 and that the great majority of
severe neuroses in women originate in the marriage bed.14
Freud theorized that sexual disturbances were due to impediments in the free circulation of a sexual substance or energy
(Sexualstoffe). He first referred to such a substance in 1892 15 and had even postulated that migraine was caused by the
toxic effect of unreleased Sexualstoffe.16 He believed that psychological illnesses were organic in origin, due to disturbances
in the energy that he imagined must circulate physically within the organism. When this substance was not released
genitally, he thought, it would reach the cerebral cortex and have a toxic effect. An analogy Freud used to picture this
process was that of a stream that meets an obstacle, becomes dammed up, and must flow into other channels.17
The notion that sexual energy is physical remained with Freud for many years, although he was never able to fulfill his
hope of discovering its chemical properties. In 1895, he said that an indispensable hypothesis regarding the nature of
sexual release was that it involves chemical products.18 In a paper written in 1905 and revised in 1924, Freud criticized Jung
for watering down the theory of the sexual instincts into a general instinctive force and said that sexuality is governed by a
specific sexual force indicative of a special chemistry.19 In 1924, Freud expressed his hope that the chemistry of the sexual
force would someday be discovered and as late as 1930 revealed that he had not completely abandoned this hope.20
Freuds early theory evolved into a theory of instinctual energies known as the Libido Theory. In this theory, he postulated
the existence of two basic instincts, the Self-Preservation Instinct and the Sexual Instinct, the force behind that he termed
libido.21 The term libido first appeared in 1895 in a paper on anxiety neurosis where it was defined as psychical desire.22
Although manifested as psychic symptoms, libido was originally thought of as a physical energy, thus a development of the
earlier concept of Sexualstoffe. Freud speaks of libidinal impulses23 and says that neurosis is caused by a deflection of
somatic sexual excitation from the physical sphere. He thought that when a person becomes sexually excited and the
excitation is not released genitally, it reaches the cerebral cortex and supplies ideas with sexual energy (a concept
obviously connected to his previous theory of the dynamics of migraine).24 As late as 1915, Freud said that the libido theory
was part of a theory of a chemical basis to sexuality. Libido was thought of as a quantitative force behind sexual excitation
distinguished from the Self-Preservation Instinct or nutritive forces by its chemistry.25
Neurotic symptoms, on this theory, were conceived to be a function of what Freud called libido cathexis, a process in
which libido was said to attach itself to nonsexual ideas or objects and become object libido.26 This view is clearly an
outgrowth of his earlier theory that neurotic symptoms are caused by the transformation of dammed-up, accumulated sexual
tension due to disturbances in natural or genital release of sexual substances. The concept of cathexis, like that of sexual
energy, was originally taken in a purely physiological sense, as a physiological displacement of energy.27 It was used in a
psychological sense for the first time in Freuds description of a case of hysterical paralysis,28 and in 1905, he claimed that
cathexis should be understood psychologically29 although tacitly expressing his belief in the ultimate physiological nature of
the process by use of expressions like cathected with energy.30
Libidinal cathexis, for Freud, constituted a misplacement of libido, an abnormal employment of sexual excitation.31
Neuroses were seen as an outgrowth of an absence of normal coition,3 2 and neurotics as people crippled in their sexual
function.33 Freud thought that to reestablish psychological health required restoration of the capacity for healthy genitality. He
implied that civilized sexuality leads to neurosis34 and that the sexual behavior of human beings lays down the fundamental

pattern for all other modes of reacting to life. A sexually energetic person, for Freud, will be energetic in all other modes of
life, and one not energetic sexually will not be energetic in other respects.35 Since neurotic symptoms were viewed as
expressions of misplaced sex energy, the symptoms were seen as the way a neurotic expresses his or her sexual needs
(albeit without gratification).36
Freud argued that physicians should ask patients questions concerning their sexual lives and thought that when they do
not, they completely miss the fact that all neurotics are genitally disturbed.37 This view, in the context of the time, was quite
revolutionary and courageous, for physicians felt that such questioning was an invasion of privacy not to be breached. Freud
implied, however, that physicians failed to inquire into the sexual lives of their patients not for this reason but because the
physicians were afraid to, that they suffered from sexual disturbances themselves that interfered with objective
examination.38
Eventually, however, Freud abandoned his theory that direct or genital expression of libido was required for restoration of
emotional health. He turned instead to the theory of sublimation of libido, a theory that entailed that health would result
when libido was redirected to nonsexual activities.39 Sublimation was thought of as a process in which sexual energy was
diverted to higher aims, and Freud thought that this process was the source of energy for a great number of cultural
achievements such as great art and music.40 The desire to look at the sexual organs of another, which are hidden by
clothing, for example, he thought could be sublimated in the direction of art.41 He believed that sublimation could be more or
less complete and that when complete would lead to emotional health.42 Even so, he continued to believe in the importance
of genitality and said, for example, that a certain amount of sexual satisfaction is necessary for most people and that a
deficiency leads to illness.43
One of Freuds most important discoveries was that sexuality functions in infants and children. As early as 1892, he had
said that children experience sexual release from many parts of the body, what he called the erotogenic zones.44 Children,
for Freud, were polymorphously perverse,45 in that any part of their skin surface could serve as an erogenous area.46 His
concept of erotogenic zones evolved to the theory that three basic erotogenic zones existthe oral, anal, and genitaland
that as infants and children mature, sexual energy changes in focus from the oral, to the anal, and then to the genital zone.47
Neurosis, Freud believed, could be caused by lack of satisfaction during any of these states.
Originally Freud had believed that neuroses were caused by overt sexual abuse of infants and children (by adults). Later
he came to think that it more often was a case of sexual fantasies on the part of the children regarding their own sexual
activity, infantile and childhood masturbation.48 In the context of his revised theory, the concept of sublimation now made
more sense, for if it was fantasy that was at the root of neuroses and not overt sexual suppression or abuse; then there
seemed no reason why successful sublimation would not lead to emotional health.49
In Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud defined the instincts as psychical representations of an endosomatic
(physiological) excitation but added that he was still ignorant as to what sexual excitation really was.50 Nineteen years later,
he added a footnote to this essay (1924), saying that although the theory of the instincts was the most important aspect of
psychoanalytical theory, it also was the least complete portion, that the actual nature or somatic basis of the instincts was
unknown.51 Given that the concept of the instincts was the ground of psychoanalytic theory and practice and that the nature
of them was unknown, it is not surprising that serious difficulties would emerge in terms of therapeutic technique. Therapy
was being carried out in ignorance of the fundamental processes that the theory behind therapeutic technique was based
on.
The two major difficulties were what were called the negative therapeutic reaction (that many patients became worse
even when correctly analyzed) and the inability of many patients to follow the basic psychoanalytical rule (to freely
associate and communicate with the analysts). Because of the first difficulty, that some patients whose analysis was
assumed to have been correct became worse, Freud believed that there must be a force at work within the organism that
pulled people away from health and toward destruction. He first mentioned this as the compulsion to retreat in a paper
entitled The Uncanny, published in 1919.52
A year later, he presented the hypothesis that there is an instinct for death, for a return to what he thought was the original
state of matter, the inorganic state.53 In The Ego and the Id, he distinguished two classes of instincts: Eros, which included
the sexual and self-preservation instincts, and the Death Instinct (or Thanatos), which he believed accounted for the
negative therapeutic reaction and was most clearly exhibited in sadism.54 In one of his final essays, he claimed that the
Death Instinct represents that in humans which is destructive and that it becomes actually destructive when directed outward
onto objects as in war.55 When directed inwardly, he thought, it destroys us; when directed outwardly, it destroys others;
when sublimated, it could be rendered harmless. Freud admitted, however, that this theory was speculative.56 Although this
idea was discriminated as a way of accounting for the negative therapeutic reaction, Freud had anticipated it before this
reaction had become a generally known therapeutic problem, as early as 1905 when he had speculated on the possibility of
an instinct for cruelty, which he had connected to anal eroticism.57
Reich, a student and colleague of Freud, like the other analysts, was confronted by the negative therapeutic reaction. In
his clinical experience, however, he found that there was a way to overcome it and that when this way could be
implemented, the reaction did not occur. This indicated to him that the negative therapeutic reaction was not rooted in an
instinctfor if it was, he reasoned, then there would be no way to overcome itbut to an improper understanding of
neuroses and so improper therapeutic technique.58 Given that the problem had been considered so resistant to

psychoanalytical technique that Freud had had to develop the theory that it was rooted in an instinct, Reichs discovery
should have been considered a significant advance in the understanding of the neuroses.
What was Reichs discovery? He found that when patients were able to form satisfying sexual relationships and engage
in periodic, gratifying sexual intercourse, no negative therapeutic reaction occurred.59 This simple if profound discovery was
in accord with Freuds early theory of the etiology of the neuroses and the means of overcoming them: that they were due to
a damming up of unsatisfied sexual energy and could be overcome when patients could release sexual energy in coitus.
Because of his success in overcoming the negative therapeutic reaction by helping his patients regain the capacity for
genital gratification, Reich developed the hypothesis that neurotic symptoms were manifestations of sexual energy in a state
o f stasis and that this sexual-energy-in-stasis was the source of neurosis. On this theory, the therapeutic goal became to
stimulate the energy that was in stasis to begin moving again and then for the patients to find suitable partners for periodic,
gratifying release of the now-moving energy. The source for the symptoms would no longer exist, and the symptoms would
disappear.60
It had been Freuds formulation of the negative therapeutic reaction, says Reich, that had enabled him to overcome it.61
But by the time Reich had come to this understanding (the findings were first published in 1927),62 Freud had abandoned his
earlier theory for the concepts of sublimation and the Death Instinct. Together, these concepts exhibit a different attitude
toward sexuality and culture than Freud had expressed earlier in his career. He now believed that neurotics were those who
poorly adapted to society in that they had failed to properly sublimate their instincts. Neurotics were viewed as those in
whom Thanatos had triumphed over Eros. Freuds earlier attitude had been that culture was the root cause of neurosis
because it represses natural genitality,6 3 and, as we have seen, he had chastised others who had ignored the sexual
etiology of the neurosis. He now believed, as he said to Reich in 1929, that culture takes precedence.64
By the 1920s, Freud conceived of psychoanalysis as a discipline that took the middle road, that its function was to help
patients adjust to society through sumblimation.65 Psychoanalysis, in other words, for Freud, should not be aimed at
restoration of genital health but to serve societal repression through sublimation of sexuality. The instincts had to be
sublimated because they contained impulses that if fulfilled, he thought, would lead to dissolution of society (sexual
impulses and the Death Instinct). When Reich presented Freud with his clinical evidence that contradicted this perspective,
Freud rejected the evidence without investigating it.

Reichs Development of Character Analysis

Reich, as far as I know, was the only member of Freuds inner circle and the only practicing psychoanalyst to attempt to
carry out Freuds original program of discovering the physical basis of the instincts. He was able to succeed in developing a
theory along these lines, not, he says, because he planned to, but because his day-to-day observations as a clinician and in
the laboratory slowly but surely led him along such a path.
Reich, a highly energetic and dynamic individual, says that he eventually lost patience with the talking cure, as
psychoanalysis was known, for his patients, like those of the other analysts, often could not freely associate and
communicate with him. He found that he could break through this form of resistance to therapy by interpreting his patients
bodily and facial expressions, the way they presented themselves, the way they walked, stood, spoke, or kept silent. In
working with such expressions, Reich discovered that how we express ourselves is as important or more important than
what we say.66
A person might say, for example, I love my wife, but in a flat, emotionless tone of voice. Reich came to understand that
the tone of voice was more indicative of the persons feelings than the words. Or a person might laugh at a joke but with a
tight, stifled kind of laugh that Reich came to understand was indicative of other, perhaps more violent, feelings underneath
the laughter and more expressive of the persons real feelings. This awareness of what today is called body language is
more or less commonplace these days, but at the time he discovered it, the discovery was revolutionary. Over the years,
Reich says that he came to understand such expressions more deeply while refining his techniqueone that was eventually
adopted by many psychiatrists and psychologistsa technique known as character analysis.67
Via character analysis, Reich was able to break through resistance to therapy as it expressed itself in the inability to
follow the basic psychoanalytical rule. It was not that patients resisted therapy consciously but that they could not freeassociate or communicate freely. As certain inhibitory character traitsthe chronic ways people hold themselves and
express themselveswere loosened via character analysis, however, he says that his patients became more able to
communicate freely. Through analysis of these chronic traits, in other words, Reich was able to make great inroads in
overcoming the inability of patients to follow the basic psychoanalytical rule.
Furthermore, according to Reich, character analysis worked to dissolve the neuroses, an indication that they were
intimately connected to the character traits. For example, a talented writer might be suffering from a neurotic fear of success
so that each time he came close to it, he sabotaged himself in some way. Reich might notice that although he always
appeared amiable and polite, his facial expression was immobile, his jaw was tight, his eyes dull, his speech a bit rambling,
his gait a bit languid as if he was always carrying a heavy burden. Through the technique of character analysis, the details of
which are explained in Reichs Character Analysis, Reich came to understand how to work with these traitsthe facial
immobility, tight jaw, dull eyes, and so onto the point where they could be altered or dissolved. As the process developed,
the neurosisin our hypothetical case, the writers fear of successdissolved as well, linking the traits to the neurosis.
Furthermore, as chronic traits dissolved, long-buried and previously unconscious emotions and thoughts became

conscious and were expressed. The writer might express anger that he had been holding in for years, perhaps because his
father had never praised him but had always made him feel like a failure, the suppressing of which caused him to hold his
jaw tight and dull his eyes. Later he might express sadness and elicit deep sobbing over his inability to make contact with his
father or mother, and a great deal of anxiety about his ability to become successful. Reich discovered that his patients had
unconsciously developed their postures and physical characteristics in order to hold back emotions and thoughts that they
were terrified to express or even feel. This was the very unconscious material that Freud had discovered but had found so
difficult to reach via psychoanalysis.
The chronic traits Reich had discovered functioned as a protection against such feelings and thoughts, as, in other words,
a kind of armor, which Reich eventually called character armor.68 Reich, via the technique of character analysis, had found
a unique way to penetrate the Freudian unconscious.
This discovery revealed that neuroses were not simply expressed in neurotic symptomssuch as hysteria, phobias,
irrational outbursts, an inability to concentrate, specific sexual dysfunctions, and so onbut were expressed in the character
as a whole. The individual traits, in other words, functioned together to form a character, a personality (to use the term
Gurdjieff was partial to), and it was the character that was neurotic. As a whole, the person was seen as armored against
feelings and thoughts that he or she could not consciously experience. Thus the armor itself was the basis for the neurotic
symptoms. The symptoms, Reich says, would disappear with dissolution of the armor.

Character Armor
Over time, Reich found that character armor consists of chronic contractions, a chronic holding of the muscles of the
body.69 He learned that people are forced to contract various muscles and muscle groups in order to suppress impulses,
emotions, and thoughts that are not allowed free expression by parents, teachers, clergymen, siblings, or friends.
If you want to get an idea of whats involved, stop for a moment and make believe you are sad and are about to cry, and
then try and stop the expression. What did you do with your body? When I try this, I find myself tightening my neck, my mouth,
my jaw, holding my chest still and rigid, tightening my stomach, holding my pelvis still, and holding my breath. Attempt this
with expressions of rage, reaching out longingly for affection, reaching out with your mouth to suckle or kiss, touching your
genitals, and so on, and I think youll begin to understand how much of the bodys muscles are involved when we are forced
to suppress such impulses and feelings.
Such suppression and the subsequent muscular rigidity, Reich found, occurs spontaneously and unconsciously in
reaction to what the outside world is requiring at the moment, begins in infancy and childhood, and thus, most significantly,
becomes habitual and chronic, meaning that we could not let go of it even if we wished to. For this reason, people are not
aware that they are armored. The postures and expressions that are symptomatic of characterological rigidity are considered
normal, as how we are supposed to hold ourselves and behave in society.
Reich says that armor develops in layers, with the earliest suppressed material at the bottom, so to speak. The first
impulses suppressedthose that emerge during the final stages of therapyare impulses Freud called libidinal impulses,
such as impulses of love, sexual impulses (oral, anal, genital), a finding in accord with Freuds original theory as to the
sexual etiology of the neuroses.
Emotions such as sadness, rage, anxiety, longing for love emerge earlier in therapy and were found to have been
suppressed later. According to Reich, they function as responses to suppression of the earliest impulses. They, like the
libidinal impulses, also were not allowed full expression and so had to be suppressed. Generally speaking, Reich found
that impulses, emotions, and thoughts suppressed latestthose utilized by us to keep the rest of the suppressed material
buriedemerge in therapy first.
One finding that was momentous in terms of psychoanalytic theory and practice was that the impulses Freud had
identified as due to the so-called death instinctviolent rage and other destructive impulses that lay behind the negative
therapeutic reaction and resistance to therapy in generalare, like other impulses and emotions, held in by the armor.
Reich found that they could be released harmlessly during therapy and would then dissolveevidence that Freuds theory
that such impulses are due to an instinct, to something that, by definition, or by its very nature, could not be removed, was
false.70

Culture Itself Is Armored

Reichs clinical findings made the overall function of character armor apparent to him. It functions, he concluded, to
suppress sexual excitation and the emotions and impulses that naturally arise in response to such suppression.
He says that what stood out in his clinical experience was the overwhelming pervasiveness of sexual misery, a condition
that appeared to be a function of ubiquitous cultural suppression of sexuality and of emotions and instinctual impulses in
general. In order to study the relationship between culture and individuals, and in order to help thousands of people that
could not be reached through the arduous process of analysis, Reich opened clinics in Germany and Austria where he
disseminated information about sexual matters and birth control devices. He also became involved with political and social
reform movements and, at one point, worked closely with socialists and communists who, he believed at the time, were

sincerely interested in alleviating the social and sexual misery of the masses.71 During this time, he observed many people
of various socioeconomic groups and came to believe that culture, as he found it in Europe at the time, was a product of the
biological rigidity of the people, a rigidity that was, in itself, neurotic and widely prevalent.72 As a psychoanalyst, he had been
under the impression that neurosis was something from which only certain people suffered, but now he came to believe that
most people are neurotic, that culture itself is sick.
Freud would not accept Reichs conclusions, for, ironically, like his own earlier theory, they implied that psychoanalysis
should work to change culture; and Freud, by this time (the late 1920s), was wedded to his theory of the death instinct and
sublimation, a theory that viewed the goal of psychoanalysis as helping people adapt to culture. A break occurred in their
relationship that eventually led to Reichs expulsion from the International Psychoanalytical Association.73

The Orgasm
Reichs most important discovery during this period was the nature and function of the orgasm, a discovery that, to this
day, remains relatively unknown and unheeded by traditional psychiatry and psychology. He says that he found that patients
judged sexually healthy according to the standards of psychoanalysis and medicine in generalthat they could have
erections, ejaculations, experience clitoral orgasm, or, in general, that they could perform adequatelynevertheless
suffered from severe genital disturbances.74 He found that those thought orgastically potent reported that they often
experienced little or no pleasure during coitus but felt disgust and other unpleasant sensations instead. Through analysis of
emotional expressions, discussions, and analysis of fantasies, Reich found that armored men and women felt a great deal of
violent emotions (mostly the men), passivity (mostly the women), and other nonsexual emotions during intercourse. Reich
eventually came to the conclusion that every neurotic person is orgastically impotent, that they are unable to experience
complete gratification in the genital embrace.
On the other hand, he found that when armor dissolved through therapy, patients no longer experienced unpleasant
sensations but only pleasurable ones and that relatively unarmored patients no longer felt violence, passivity, and other
nonsexual feelings during intercourse. Previously neurotic people became emotionally healthy and sexually healthy at the
same time, and the latter seemed directly related to the former. Because he was able to help patients become sexually
healthy, he learned, through close questioning of them, what the sexual experiences of sexually healthy people are like,
gaining access to a realm of human experience that had been virtually closed off to others.

Orgastic Potency
He found that orgastic potency is characterized by the following traits: when a man becomes sexually excited and the
penis becomes erect (fills with blood), he experiences an erection that is pleasurable and not painful. The penis, says Reich,
is not overexcited as it is with men who suffer from premature ejaculation. When a woman becomes sexually excited, the
vaginal walls become hyperemic (fill with blood) and moist, but in a specific way. He found that the secretion has chemical
and physical properties not present in sexually disturbed women.75
Both women and men are spontaneously gentle with no sadistic impulses in men or passivity in women. Reich says that
men and women act no differently from one another during intercourse, indicating that typical role differences are neurotic,
caused by character armor. Pleasurable excitation developed during the preliminary stages, Reich found, remains at about
the same level. The man feels an urge to penetrate but with no sadistic impulses to pierce the woman. Nor does the
healthy woman wish to be pierced. There are no rape fantasies in healthy women.
With penetration of the penis, excitation suddenly increases in both the man and the woman. Reich says that the man has
a sensation of being sucked in, and the woman, of sucking in the penis. Mutual, slow, spontaneous, and effortless
movements and friction lead to a buildup of excitation that Reich says is concentrated on the surface and the glans of the
penis and on the posterior parts of the vaginal mucous membrane.
At this point, says Reich, the body is less excited than the genitals, and consciousness is completely concentrated on the
sensations of pleasure, something that with the orgastically impotent does not happen. Both partners, he says, continue to
gently exhaust all possibilities of pleasure and reach a state of maximum sexual tension before yielding at acme to the
release of the tension. Sexually healthy partners, Reich determined, are sensitive to one anothers feelings and sensations.
Talking or laughing does not occur, he says, except for words of tenderness.
Interruption of friction is pleasurable and can prolong the sexual act. As friction continues, the excitation increases and
begins to spread throughout the whole body, while excitation at the genitals remains more or less the same. There then
occurs a sudden increase of genital excitation, and voluntary control is no longer possible. The increase produces rapid
heartbeats, deep expirations, and excitation becomes more concentrated on the genitals.
A sensation of melting sets in, a sensation of radiation of excitation from the genitals to the rest of the body. Acme then
occurs with involuntary contractions of the musculature of the genitals and the pelvic floor, which occur in waves, with the
crests occurring at penetration and the troughs at retraction of the penis. This leads to ejaculation in the male.
At this point, there occurs a more or less intense clouding of consciousness, friction becomes spontaneously more
intense, the man feels the urge to penetrate completely, and the woman to receive completely. The whole body is then taken
over by the orgastic excitation, and the entire body musculature expands and contracts in what became known as the
orgasm reflex. Excitation flows back from the genitals to the body, and a sudden decrease in tension is experienced. Acme,
says Reich, is the point where excitation changes direction from toward the genital to back toward the body. It is the

complete flowing of excitation back to the body, he says, that constitutes complete gratification. Excitation then gently tapers
off and is followed by pleasurable relaxation and a tender, loving attitude toward the partner. Reich found that in both sexes,
orgasm is more intense and gratification more complete when peaks of genital excitation coincide.

Orgastic Impotence
As one studies Reichs description of a complete orgasm and compares it with what is usually thought of as normal
sexual experience, the magnitude of Reichs discovery becomes apparent. When any of the properties described by Reich
are missing, an orgastic disturbance exists. Of course, with prolonged forced abstinence, even the orgastically potent
individual may experience absence of complete orgasm, for the genitals might become overexcited and premature
ejaculation could occur in the male. It is also true that, for various reasons, orgastically potent individuals do not always
experience complete orgasm. For instance, sometimes the partners do not harmonize in their rhythms. As Reich says, it
takes a long time to get to know ones love partner in the body, which means that experience with a particular individual can
increase the capacity for complete gratification.76
Orgastic impotence is characterized by experiences of what Reich calls leaden exhaustion, disgust, repulsion,
indifference, and occasionally hatred toward the partner. During the excitation phase, men often experience unpleasurable
erections, and women, lack of pleasurable sensations in the vagina. As tension increases, the orgastically impotent person
does not let go of voluntary control, and the involuntary convulsions of the body musculature do not occur. This entails lack
of complete discharge of the tension and no concomitant sensation of release or gratification.
The other psychoanalysts were skeptical when Reich proposed his theory that not one neurotic person was orgastically
potent and that orgastic potency is the condition of psychic health. But Reich was apparently the only analyst who
questioned his patients so extensively regarding their sexual experiences and feelings. In this way, he was able to follow
their progress in their sexual lives as their armor dissolved and could conclude that as armor dissolves, orgastic potency and
sexual gratification improves. Furthermore, Reichs technique evolved so that he was able to view patients in his office in a
way that he could see any improvements in their capacity to experience an orgasm reflex, a discovery to be further
explained in the following chapter.
The other analysts did not have Reichs experience or understanding of the orgasm and its relation to the chronic
character traits or armoring that functioned as the foundation of their neurosis, and most of them rejected his concepts out of
hand. They could have taken a more liberal or open view of Reichs theory simply on the basis of proper scientific method: a
true scientist doesnt reject a theory without studying the evidence. It seems to me that had the analysts been more
conscientious, scientifically speaking, they would have reserved judgment and tested the hypothesis before condemning it.77

Notes
1. Freud, vol. I, p. 50; see also On Psychotherapy, vol. VIII, p. 243.
2. Ibid., vol. I, p. 142 (Extracts from the Fliess Papers).
3. Ibid., p. 50.
4. Ibid., p. 51.
5. Ibid., p. 142 (Footnotes to Charcot).
6. Ibid., p. 178.
7. Ibid., p. 181.
8. Ibid., pp. 191-3.
9. Ibid., p. 240.
10. RSF, p. 121, note 2.
11. Freud, vol. II, p. xxvi.
12. Ibid., pp. 200, 246-7.
13. Ibid., pp. 257-8.
14. Ibid., p. 246.
15. Ibid., vol. I, p. 191.
16. Ibid., p. 214.
17.

Ibid., p. 345. Reich used the same analogy sixty years later to picture how armor derives from the blockage of the flow
of orgone energy. See RSF, pp. 42-3.

18. Ibid., p. 321 (Project for a Scientific Psychology).

19. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 217 (Three Essays on Sexuality).
20. RSF, p. 120, note 9.
21. Freud, vol. XVIII, p. 255; see also Ola Rakness, OEB, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1952): pp. 13-18.
22. Freud, vol. III, p. 107.
23. Ibid., p. 281.
24. Ibid., p. 108.
25.

Ibid., vol. VII, p. 215. The resemblance of this theory to Gurdjieffs notion of sex energy as H-12 in relation to nutritive
energies as H-768 to H-96 is interesting.

26. Ibid., vol. III, p. 108.

27. Ibid., vol. II, p. xxii.
28. Ibid., p. 89.
29. Ibid., pp. xxiv-xxv.
30. Ibid., vol. III, p. 174.
31. Ibid., p. 108.
32. Ibid., p. 109.
33. Ibid., p. 274.
34. Ibid., vol. IX, pp. 161ff.
35. Ibid., p. 198. See also vol. VII, p. 272.
36.

Ibid., vol. VII, p. 278. The resemblance of this theory to Gurdjieffs theory of the borrowing of sex energy by the other
centers is obvious.

37. Ibid., vol. III, p. 264.

38.

Ibid., pp. 264ff. According to Reich, in the 1920s Freud continued to hold such an opinion regarding most of his
disciples, the psychoanalysts. See RSF, p. 67.

39. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 238.

40. Ibid., p. 178.
41. Ibid., p. 279.

42. Ibid., p. 238.

43. Ibid., vol. IX, p. 188.
44. Ibid., vol. I, 239.
45. Ibid., vol. VII, pp. 191ff.
46. Ibid., pp. 183-4, 201.
47. Ibid., p. 274.
48. Ibid., p. 274.
49. Ibid., vol. XVIII, p. 256.
50. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 216.
51. Ibid., p. 168.
52. Ibid., vol. XVIII, pp. 3-4.
53. Ibid., p. 38, 49-57, 60-3, 102, 258-9; see also vol. XXII, p. 107.
54. Ibid., vol. XIX, p. 40.
55. Ibid., vol. XXII, Why War?
56. Ibid., vol. XXIII, p. 41; vol. XXII, p. 211. See also RSF, p. 72.
57. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 199ff.
58. Raknes, op. cit.
59. EW, pp. 158ff.
G, pp. 7ff; FO, pp. 87ff.

60

61. RSF, p. 72. (Reich had apparently let his colleagues know prior to publication. See Myron Sharaf, Fury on Earth [New
York: St. Martins Press, 1983], pp. 86ff.)
62. G (originally entitled Die Funktion des Orgasmus).
63. Freud, vol. IX, Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness, passim.
64. RSF, pp. 44-5.
65. Ibid., p. 52.
66. CA, p. 54.
67.

Though Reich is not always given credit for this. In RSF, for example, it is reported that in the book The History of
Psychiatry, by Franz Alexander and H. G. Selznick, MD (1966), there is not a single reference to Reich, the man known
as Freuds pet, whom Freud called the best head of his students. See Sharaf, op. cit., pp. 102ff.

68. FO, p. 360.

69. CA, pp. 53, 323, 364-5, and passim.
70. Ibid., pp. 249-98, 310-30, 367-73.
71. RSF, pp. 42-51, 80, and passim; PT, passim.
72. RSF, p. xi.
73.

Ibid., p. xi. Reich was expelled. He did not resign as E. Jones reports in his History of Psychoanalysis. See also Sharaf,
op. cit., pp. 5, 84, 186-8.

7 4 . FO, p. 77. Sharaf, op. cit., pp. 86ff, reports that Reich also analyzed the case histories of hundreds of other patients
besides his own regarding their sexual lives.
75. See IC, p. 126. Everything else reported in this section comes from FO, pp. 79-87.
76. TMC, Chapter 3.
77.

Reich says the basic reason his theory was rejected without investigation is that most of the analysts, like most people,
were genitally disturbed (RSF, pp. 17, 106). This is not mere speculation or sour grapes, for if they had not been
disturbed, their reaction would have been scientifically rational, i.e., they would have reserved judgment and tested the
hypothesis. Instead, some reverted to slander (RSF, p. 8), spreading false rumors concerning Reichs mental state that
persist to this day, invective, and ridicule.

See also Beyond Psychology, by Reich, edited with a wonderful introduction by Mary Boyd Higgins, published by Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York, 1994.

CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
Basic Character Types

Character armor, according to Reich, generally speaking, is the product of the interaction of a threatening, hostile world
with the innocent, vulnerable organism. Chronic muscular rigidity develops because, as infants, children, adolescents, and
adults, we are forced to suppress core or basic biological impulses and emotionsin Gurdjieffs terms, our essencesand
the impulses and emotions that result from this suppression.
To suppress such impulses and emotions, we are forced to unconsciously and chronically contract certain muscles and
inhibit our breathing. In this way, impulses and emotions are blocked before being expressed. In an environment
consistently suppressive of core emotions and impulsesthe environment of most societies known to recorded history
people become chronically armored. Our world is a world of armored men and women, a planet of people out of contact with
our basic or essential nature.
Reich discriminated a number of character types, each distinguished by a pattern of armoring.1 The two most fundamental
types, for Reich, are the Neurotic Character Type and the Genital Character Type. According to Reich, these two types are
defined by the rigidity of the armoring. The Neurotic Character Type is characterized as having rigid armoring to the extent
that the person cannot change or eliminate it. The Genital Character Type also has armor, but it is not rigid, and the person is
therefore capable of dropping the armor when it is not needed. In other words, the person is able to respond flexibly to
different situations.2
Although each person and each type exhibits different character traits, Reich presented a general picture of the Neurotic
Character Type as one where the organism holds back. The shoulders are pulled back, the chest thrust out, the chin rigid,
the breathing superficial and suppressed, the pelvis retracted, and the legs rigidly stretched outa posture expressive, says
Reich, of total restraint.3 The armored person is incapable of breaking down his or her own armor or of expressing his or her
biological (core or essence) emotions; is incapable of expressing a sigh of pleasure, which Reich says comes out as a
groan, a suppressed, pent-up roar, or possibly an impulse to vomit; cannot vent anger by banging a fist; cannot breathe out
fully due to constriction of the diaphragm.4
The armored organism is incapable of moving the pelvis forward and when asked to do so will not understand or will
actually retract it. The peripheral muscles are acutely sensitive to pressure because they are chronically contracted. Reich
says that when he would touch certain parts of the bodies of particular patients, his touch caused acute anxiety or
nervousness.
Each individual character structure is unique. Sometimes it is anger that is suppressed, sometimes mainly expressions of
sadness, longing for affection, or the desire to explore ones genitals. Parents may use physical violence to suppress their
children or some form of psychological violence such as mocking the child or berating it. Some parents suppress emotions
consistently, day after day, while others do so only intermittently. In some families, suppression is carried out by only one
parent, while in others, both parents may be involved, or other siblings, grandparents, boyfriends or girlfriends, and so on.
The influence of teachers or religious leaders add to this picture, although it seems that the parents influence is most
important, and during the first few months or years, the mother counts the most.5

Segmental Arrangement of the Armor

Reich concluded that armor is arranged in seven segments at right angles to and along the length of the body. Armoring
in each segment functions as a ring around the entire body at each particular segment and includes both the front and the
back of the body. The segments comprise the organs and muscle groups that are functionally in contact with one another
and are capable of accompanying one another in expression of emotion.6
Reich says that he found at least two clearly distinguishable, segmentally arranged armorings in the head, the ocular
segment (comprising the forehead, eyes, and cheekbones), and the oral segment (made up of the lips, chin, and jaws).7 The
ocular segment can be armored in the following way: contraction and immobilization of some, most, or all muscles of the
eyeballs, eyelids, and forehead. The forehead can be rigid, the eyes expressionless or bulging, and a masklike expression
can be seen with respect to the cheekbones around the nose. Schizophrenics, says Reich, have blank eyes, as if they were
staring into space, caused by contractions of the eyeball muscles. He found that many patients could not shed tears, while
others had a narrow slitlike opening of the eyes.
In the oral segment, the chin can be rigid, the lips tight, and the jaws rigid. Such armoring expresses inhibition of the
ability to cry, scream, bite angrily, reach out longingly with the lips (for the nipple, to kiss), and so on. Reich found, however,
that mere loosening of oral armoring does not necessarily lead to emotional expressions bound by it but that with some
emotions and character structures, the ocular segment must be loosened before emotions blocked in the oral segment
emerge. For the orgasm reflex to be freed, Reich found, the entire body, all the segments, must be freed of armor.
The third segment is that of the muscles of the neck area, including the tongue, which Reich points out is connected

anatomically to the cervical bone system and not the lower facial bones. Chronic contractions in this area, says Reich,
mainly function to suppress crying. The impulse to cry is literally swallowed, the extent to which can be observed in the
position and movement of the Adams apple. Reich says that it is extremely difficult to eliminate neck armor directly but that
elicitation of the gag reflex loosens it as well as armoring in the chest and diaphragm.
The fourth segment is the chest segment. Armor in this segment shows itself as chronically raised chest and shoulders, a
continuous attitude of inhalation, shallow breathing, and immobility of the thorax. All the intercostal muscles, pectorals, and
shoulder muscles are involved, and the major expression is one of being self-controlled, self-contained, sticking to
oneself, stubbornness, stiff-necked, or indifferent. Chest armor serves to inhibit such hard emotions as raging anger
and soft emotions like heart-felt crying, sobbing, and unbearable longing, which, to the armored male, seems childish and
effeminate. Militarism the world over, says Reich, makes use of such armoring.
Armor in the arms and hands is an extension of chest armoring, for biophysically they are extensions of the chest
segment. Expressions of detachment, haughtiness, grandeur, and so on are exhibited when the arms are held rigidly.
Awkwardness in the arms and hands can result as well. Sometimes, says Reich, an impulse to choke is inhibited in
contractions of this segment.
Chest armoring can result in lack of sensitivity in the nipples and consequent disturbances in sexual gratification and an
aversion to nursing. Reich says that it can be traced back to the most crucial conflict-ridden points in childhood, probably
prior to when pelvic armoring developed. He found that in the course of dissolution of this segment, memories of traumatic
mistreatment often arise, memories of frustrations and disappointments in love during childhood. Such remembrances,
Reich emphasizes, however, are not the focal point of therapy. What is crucial to armor dissolution is expression of the
emotions. Memories often arise spontaneously during the process.
The fifth segment is that of the diaphragm and comprises the diaphragm itself and the organs below it, the stomach, solar
plexus, pancreas, liver, and the two bulging muscles extending alongside the lowermost vertebrae. When this segment is
contracted, the spine is arched so the therapist can usually put his hand between the patients back and the couch, and the
diaphragm usually is immobile. When patients are asked to breathe, says Reich, those contracted in this segment inhale but
have great difficulty exhaling fully. This is because the organism is afraid of the sensations and emotions that would be
experienced upon full expiration or expansion of the diaphragmpleasurable emotions and anxiety suppressed during
childhood.
Reich found that loosening of this segment often led to a side-to-side jerking of the lower part of the trunk, which
expresses a no!as if, implies Reich, the lower part of the body was saying that it didnt want to feel things down there.
Reich says that contractions in this area are often accompanied by nausea, particularly when emotions are aroused, and an
inability to vomit, an indication of an aversion to peristaltic, wavelike movements along the length of the body that also are
exhibited with different sensations and emotions in the orgasm reflex. Reich found that elicitation of the gag reflex loosens
this segment and often causes vomiting.
The sixth segment, the abdominal segment, is comprised of the larger abdominal muscle, the two lateral muscles
connected to the pelvis and lower ribs, and the lower muscles of the spine. Reich says that when this segment is armored,
respiration is inhibited, and it functions, along with armoring in the diaphramic segment, to protect the contents of the
abdomen (to suppress impulses and emotions felt in the abdominal area). Since this segment includes muscles of the lower
back, such armoring contributes to various forms of lower-back pain. Reich says this is the easiest segment to loosen.
The seventh segment is the pelvic segment, which includes all the muscles of the pelvis, the anus, and the legs. The
pelvis is retracted, the anal sphincter muscle is contracted, and the thigh abductors tense. A contracted pelvis, says Reich, is
dead and expresses asexuality. It functions to suppress genital excitation and forms when genitality is suppressed in
childhood. Reich found many overt symptoms attributable to pelvic armoringfor example, erectile impotence or
overexcitation of the penis and consequent premature ejaculation, vaginal anesthesia or spasms of the muscles of the
vaginal opening. Chronic contraction of this segment, Reich found, can also lead to physical symptoms such as constipation,
lumbago, growths of the rectum, inflammation of the ovaries, polyps on the uterus, benign and malignant tumors, or irritation
of the urinary bladder with hypersensitivity of the urethra. Physical symptoms often accompany armoring in other segments
as well, a subject explored below.
Reich found that pelvic armoring, like armoring in the shoulders, holds impulses of rage and anxiety. Since the armor
does not permit involuntary movements during orgasm, the pleasure sensations are turned into the expression or feeling of
sadistic rage or having to get through. Besides rage, feelings of contempt are evident in those with pelvic armoring
contempt for the sexual organs, the sex act, and the partner. Given that genitality is suppressed the world over to one degree
or another, pelvic armoring is widely prevalent. This means, as Reich says, that when men and women have sex in this
armored world, it is rarely a matter of love.
As armor begins to dissolve, spastic muscles begin to shiver involuntarily, indicating they are beginning to break down or
give in.8 This can lead to further contractions as the organism fights to maintain the armoring. For example, when oral
armoring is loosened prior to the freeing of neck and chest armor, an expression of sadness may emerge on the mouth,
which is then transformed into a hateful grin as neck and chest armor clamps down against the feeling and expression of
sadness. Reich found generally that when an impulse to surrender is obstructed by armor, it turns into destructive rage.

Elimination of muscular rigidity throughout the organism leads to development of the orgasm reflex, says Reich, which
develops as a matter of course when the armor is broken down. This means that the armor functions, not merely to hold
down emotions suppressed in infancy and childhood, but, just as essentially, to prevent the orgasm reflex from occurring.
Although the variables of armor formation are numerous, Reich found that he could grasp the essence of his patients
characters rather quickly by asking them not to speak. Speech often functioned as a defense, but when his patients were
silent, Reich soon learned to comprehend their most conspicuous character traits because it was in the body expression that
emotional expressions were most easily comprehended. Reich says, for example, that a friendly laugh might turn into an
empty grin, reserved seriousness into an expression of suppressed anger as it appeared on the chin and neck during
silence. Body expression, Reich learned, is a language, and he learned to read it and work with it.9
When people are armored, says Reich, it is not as if they are handicapped in a mechanical way but that inhibition sets in
when the body movements are expressive of emotions. An example Reich gave is the armoring of the chest and arms. A
person may be capable of moving the arms mechanically, but when emotions such as yearning or longing arise, the arms
suddenly become immobile, incapable of expressing these emotions.10 Eventually Reich learned to sense the emotional
expression behind the body expression, not merely to read it. He says the expressive movements of his patients involuntarily
caused him to imitate the movement and personally experience the emotions behind it.
Thus Reich learned to put himself in his patients shoes, to almost feel their feelings, thus to better understand what they
were going through. This idea is also found in Gurdjieff and is an aspect of what he called external considering, or the
ability to adapt to others, to their understanding.11 The kinds of imitation Reich learned to do is one powerful way of
becoming intimately acquainted with the inner lives of others, an important prerequisite to right external considering.

Hostile Suppression of Genital Play

Reich came to believe suppression of sexuality is of fundamental significance in armor formation and development of
emotional illness. Sexual feelings are extremely powerful and until suppressed are experienced as normal, very pleasurable
sensations. Children have no idea that those feelings that give such pleasure are so wrong.
Not all suppression of sexuality is carried out with overt violence or obvious hostility. But when it is, infants and children
are put in the position of having to defend themselves. First of all, the infant or child must inhibit its behavior as a means of
self-protection. Of course, hostility can come in various forms, the form of overt violence (an adult might shout at or strike a
child when the child touches its genitals or engages in sex play with other children, for example), or the hostility can be more
subtle (the adult might express disgust, moral indignation, shame, or indifference). When children are inhibited in sex play,
they are forced, to begin with, to pull their hands from their genitals. If the inhibition is consistent, they may become afraid to
touch their genitals. This means they must keep their hands away from there, even when an impulse to touch arises,
particularly when in the company of others.
Reich found that it is the consistency of the inhibition that is crucial to armor formation. If a hostile reaction occurs only
once and without great trauma, chronic armoring probably does not form, although there can be no certainty of this since it
would depend on the nature of the hostility, its timing, and the circumstances in which it occurs. When parents are
consistently hostile, the child becomes terrified to act out the impulse, thus must develop chronic contractions in the
segments of the body that are used to hold back the behavior. In the case of genital play, contractions develop, to begin with,
in the arms and hands, the neck, and the shouldersthe parts of the body involved in touching the forbidden area.
Since the urge is felt at the genitals, however, the child must also contract the muscles that block the impulse itself, since
blocking the impulse is the surest way to prevent the behavior that elicits the hostility. In the case of genital excitation, this
means the muscles of the pelvic segment and those of the abdomen, which block sensations from rising from the genital
area into the trunk. Furthermore, children instinctively hold their breath when met with hostility to pleasurable sensations, for
free, spontaneous breathing stimulates pleasurable sensations, while holding the breath diminishes them. To hold the
breath requires contraction of the muscles associated with respiration, those of the oral segment and the neck as well as
those of the chest, diaphragm, and the abdomen.12
It can be seen then that behavior on the part of adults that we consider perfectly reasonable, moral, and in the best
interests of the childsuppression of genitalitywhich in children, of course, cannot result in pregnancy, often the rationale
given for suppression of adolescent sexuality, leads to chronic muscular armoring. Suppression of sexual feelings is crucial
therefore not only because it is suppression of a powerful, essential urge in itself, which feels to the one being stifled as if
their very being is at stake, but also because suppression of this urge leads to massive armoring, armoring of the entire body
in all the segments.

The Hostility of the Adult World toward Natural Expression

Hostility toward genitality and expressions of other impulses and emotions is seen in a variety of ways the world over. The
impulse to cry might be attacked with overt violence or with wordsShut up!or more subtly, Big boys dont cry, Dont
be a crybaby. Hostility can also be expressed as indifference, which, on the face of it, we might not think would lead to
chronic armoring. Such a response, however, especially when contrasted with reactions to other forms of behaviora home
run, for example, or an A on the report cardclearly reveals a negative attitude to children. The childs need to inhibit the
behavior remains, although not necessarily as intensely as when it is met with overt hostility.
Repressive, hostile reactions by adults lead to many feelings in children, including rage, which, like other core or essence

emotions, spontaneously seek outlet. Rage, says Reich, can be stimulated simply when other core needs are not met and
may be exhibited, for example, in infants whose need to suckle is frustrated. The infant might become enraged because its
mother does not understand its needs and does not respond to its cries appropriately. It may be offered a plastic nipple
when it seeks the contact of living flesh; the mothers nipple may not respond, or the mother may not be able to make
emotional contact with the infant while nursing or bottle-feeding.
Expressions of rage on the part of the infant can be met with understanding, in which case the infant will be allowed free
expression while the adult tries to discover what is needed. Muscular contractions to inhibit the expression of rage would not
then be necessary. Rage can also be met with overt hostility, which would be a great shock to the infant and could lead to
severe contractions of the body musculature and if consistent, according to Reich, to severe emotional illness.
Longing for love and sadness are other core emotions that can be met with hostility in one form or another. They can be
met with out-and-out violence or in the form of ridicule or, less directly, with indifference when the adult fails to respond to the
childs reaching out. When the latter reaction occurs on a consistent basis, according to Reich, a child can develop a
cloying character, an expression of its desperate need for affection and attention, which can be so annoying to adults
She always wants attention, He never leaves me aloneand yet is caused by our own lack of contact.
We justify our reactions in various waysfor example, in terms of religion, We must correct the little devils original sin;
by saying that we must teach the children the ways of the cruel world; that if children are allowed free expression, they will
become wild animals, particularly with respect to sexual behavior; that it was done to us, and we turned out all right, and so
on. On the basis of Reichs discoveries, the impulses and expressions of infants and children cannot be said to be
objectively evil but, on the contrary, are expressions of the very force of life itself.
From Reichs point of view, if it were merely a matter of protection from singular attacks from the outside world, chronic
armoring would not develop. Armor would arise as protection to ward off threatening stimuli and subside when the threat
was gone; muscles would contract and then relax. This, of course, is what happens with every living thing and initially with
infants and children as well. Like desert life, however, humans are consistently and habitually threatened by a hostile
environment, by armored reactions to their natural impulses, impulses that to children, as to every living creature, feel, so to
speak, completely correct.
Infants and children obviously have no understanding of what is happening to them when adults condemn their natural
expressions and can take the hostile reactions in only one way, as an expression or a statement that what they feel is bad,
that what they wish to express is bad. In other words, such suppression is taken as a comment on their very essence, that
they, in essence, are bad. This attitude toward the living is very well expressed in the popular conception of the doctrine of
original sin, which is an obvious cultural and institutional expression of the feelings of a large segment of the adult world
toward infants, children, sexuality, and life itself.
As inhibition of impulses and emotions becomes more and more habitual, theyoriginally experienced as pleasurable,
correct, and so onare experienced as bad, dangerous, even painful, and something to be quieted or kept down. Genital
sensations, originally experienced as warm and lovely, become something that elicits embarrassed giggles, twisted smirks,
and feelings of guilt or shame, while words with sexual connotations are seen as dirty.
Eventually, says Reich, core impulses and emotions, because they must be held down, cause anxiety when they arise,
for although they are held down by the contracted muscles, they do not simply vanish. They remain trapped within the armor
and cause tension and pressure, which are felt subjectively as anxiety. Humans, like all living organisms, instinctively seek
to eliminate or minimize anxiety and return to homeostatic comfort. To do so requires further quieting of the impulses that
cause the anxiety in the first place via more severe muscular contractions.13 Life brings anxiety enough in the form of
hurricanes, economic depressions, sickness, death, and so on; and when the anxiety caused by suppression of core
impulses is added to anxiety caused by natural events, a picture emerges of a nervous, confused, frightened, inhibited
human being.
Yet inhibition of core impulses and emotions and of the anxiety this causes is not all that happens in response to a hostile
world. Children are forced to hide the fact that they even have the impulses, the anxiety, and are suffering an intense internal
conflict. This necessity is forced upon children (and adolescents as well as adults) by an adult world that prefers a false face,
a world that is concerned with image rather than with reality, and leads to development of a facade expressing such attitudes
as Im not a crybaby, I dont care,14 Im a tough guy, I dont like girls, and so on. As we grow older, this facade hardens
into the rigid mask of what Gurdjieff calls false personality.

Adolescence
By the time we reach adolescence, our character structure has become a many-layered labyrinth. At the bottom are the
core or essence drives, which continue to pulse. On top of them or surrounding them, the armor used to inhibit these drives,
layered according to the time the various impulses were suppressed and the intensity of the suppression. This layer is
covered over by the facade, the face we present to the world and to ourselves.
To speak of armor as a labyrinth is to imply that it is not neatly layered but that the combination of core drives, suppressed
emotions and impulses, anxiety, and the facade intertwine in ways that are often confusing. The nature of the labyrinth
depends on the timing and the severity of the suppression, but generally, according to Reich, as mentioned, the earlier the
suppression occurs, the deeper will be the armoring.15 It develops differently if repression occurs when the impulse is at its
peak of intensity or if it occurs when it is weaker. These and other factors determine the type of labyrinth that develops, the

character type.16
Is it any wonder that adolescence is a difficult time? During this period, sexual impulses become organized around the
genitals, and the urge to superimpose or mate with a lover begins to surface. The labyrinth of armor is already well formed,
and added to the tension this produces is the fact that these genital impulses are not allowed free expression.
Teenagers are not told that this is a wonderful time to explore their sexuality. Parents dont offer their homes for
uninhibited, guilt-free sexual activitycondoms provided. This sounds ridiculous or horrible to most of usimmoral. Thus
the damage done by sexual suppression in childhood is intensified in adolescence, and the armoring needed to deal with
such suppression can only evolve and rigidify. In Gurdjieffs terms, false personality and the buffers gain in strength at the
expense of the essence.
Suppression of sexuality in teenagers increases inner tension and leads to the kind of symptoms adolescence is famous
for: drug and alcohol addiction, an inability or unwillingness to concentrate in school, so-called adolescent rebelliousness
(considered normal in many cultures), and so on. But are these symptoms inevitable? Would unarmored adolescents who
were free to explore their emerging sexuality develop them? Reichs study of Malinowskis research into the lives of the
Trobriand Islanders, where adolescent sexuality was allowed free expression, indicates that they wouldnt, that unarmored,
sexually free adolescents are not rebellious and do not develop neurotic symptoms.17
Adolescent neurotic symptoms, like adult neurotic symptoms, are expressions of the conflict between the core and the
armor.18 Symptoms, therefore, are distorted core impulses, impulses that, before emerging, must make their way through the
labyrinth of the armor and are shaped by it. Adolescents often become overtly hostile, pick fights, commit crimes, drive
recklessly, and so on. Sometimes they become extremely shy or run away from home. They may have difficulty making
contact with others, in studying, need to sleep overlong and yet always feel tired, feel terribly lonely, and feel the need to
move in packs to cover the loneliness. They are prone to deep depressions that often lead to attempts at suicide. Many get
bored easily and turn to excessive drug and alcohol use to liven things up. Adolescents, as William James pointed out, are
particularly prone to religious conversion,1 9 which is considered a more acceptable adjustment in many cultures. These
days, however, this inclination often takes the form of joining various religious or pseudoreligious movements promising
instant relief from their suffering (we call them cults these days, a rather poor use of a term used in anthropology to name
any apparently religious belief system), an alternative (speaking of the so-called cults) not as pleasing to most parents yet
caused by their own policy.
Some teenagers adjust to the conditions of repressive society in ways considered healthy by society, by competing in
sports, for example. Competitiveness is highly esteemed, and so teenagers who become involved in competitive sports or
who become socially or intellectually competitive are considered the cream of the crop. Yet is the main focus on
competitiveness really healthy? Would unarmored, sexually free adolescents become focused on competitiveness, or would
they learn to cooperate for the purpose of helping others, the biosphere, and so on?
Adolescence is often an angry time. The anger can be seen on many adolescents faces as they hang around, bored,
with nothing to do, no place to go. Nothing interests them because the source of their interest, their essence impulses, are
suppressed by their own character armor, and that which they are most intensely interested in, genitality, is denied free, nonguilt-ridden expression. You can hear it in their music: All I ever hear is no, you cant do that . . . you cant do that.
Of course not all teenagers are angry. Some are just scared, suffering from anxiety about grades, their social lives, guilt
about masturbation, and so on. Others give up gratification of their own desires and become resigned to conforming out of
deep-seated fear, while others keep as stoned as they can, finding emotional oblivion the best solution. Adults sometimes
take adolescent drug use, alcoholism, reckless driving, sexual interest and behavior as symptoms of their fundamental evil
nature and as confirmation of their own deep-seated hate of the living (I told you we never should have had children. Look
at the grief he is causing us.). That their desire for sexual contact can be seen in the same light as antisocial behavior,
criminal behavior, reckless driving, and so on is symptomatic of the adult worlds armored, perverse comprehension of
sexuality.
Psychologists, educators, social workers, and other professionals appear baffled by the so-called adolescent problem.
Numerous articles and books are written on the subject; it is discussed incessantly on talk radio and television, and many
answers are provided: Adolescence is a difficult time, Its natural for teenagers to feel awkward with the opposite sex,
We should put them to work or in the army, thatll cure them, take their minds off sex and drugs, They shouldnt be allowed
to drink or drive until they reach the age of twenty-one, They should be treated more like adults, There is no one reason
for adolescent alcoholism or drug abuse, It all starts in the home, and so on. Each answer contains a bit of truth, but few
professionals face the problem directly: adolescents are sexually suppressed at a time when genital urges are powerful.
This leads to anger, anxiety, deep frustration, heartbreaking sadness, resignation, aching longing, and the need to escape.
The fact that many teenagers make it through this period without exhibiting severe or overt symptoms is testimony to the
power of the life force, not to civilized suppression.
This is not to imply that all problems of adolescence can be solved via sexual intercourse. Sex is not a panacea. But
weve tried the opposite approach for a long time now, and the adolescent problem has not gone away. Might we take a
cue from the Trobrianders and learn from Reichs discoveries that our approach perhaps has been misguided? It is not as if
we have no evidence within our midst of the value of sex-positive upbringing. There are those who have loving, sex-positive
parents and so develop relatively unarmored regarding their own sexuality. It cannot be easy for them, seeing as they must
seek gratifying relationships and meaningful work in an armored, hostile, and resigned world. But at least they have their

core intact and may be able to find some satisfaction in life.20

The Adult Character

By the time we reach adulthood, we are full-fledged characters of one type or another. Our characters are formed
initially from the way we deal with the conflict between our first feelings, our core impulses, and the hostility of the outside
world. But this conflict produces other feelings, such as anger or rage, and these feelings are also usually suppressed.
Suppression of these feelings leads to development of a secondary layer of feelings that are violent and destructive. As
mentioned, most of us also develop a third layer, a facade, mask, or persona that hides the secondary destructive feelings as
well as the primary core or essence.
By the time we reach adulthood, we have incorporated the cruel world into our own bodies. We now are the cruel
world, and we suppress our children and teenagers. Our characters are expressions of how we have learned to deal with
our core impulses and destructive feelingshow we hide these feelings under the facade of mechanical politeness,
restraint, false modesty, and so onwhich serves to keep the secondary layer and the core within the bounds of decency.21
The destructive impulses do break through, however, and are factors in the type of facade formed. There is the polite
smile that sends a double message, for example, or the polite remark that cuts to the bone, the offhand comment that breaks
the heart, the sincere expression that seduces, harmless gossip that can kill a person. We have evolved a great number
of civilized ways of doing things that reveal our underlying contempt for spontaneous life: clothing that cuts off body
sensations yet seduces, correct table manners that lead to nervousness and indigestion in young children, proper social
amenities that destroy spontaneous human interaction, meaningless greetings and farewells in which real contact is
avoided, various unspoken rules of behavior that keep everything under control.
Even more insidious, perhaps, is institutional polite destructiveness, which expresses the secondary layer in a totally
impersonal way: the grading system in education that destroys the zest for learning for its own sake; lack of fresh air in
schools, office buildings, and factories for lack of windows that open that keep students and workers half asleep (such
conditions are not always politeas in the case of the Triangle Clothing Factory fire in which hundreds of mostly young
women perished for lack of fire exits and windows that open); the military-industrial complex that sends adolescents to war
for profit; laws and mores against natural genitality that prevent the young from expressing their love fully to one another;
impersonal job interviews and rejection slips that lead to characterological resignation and despair; business practices that
focus on the bottom line instead of genuine essential human needs. The list could be extended endlessly, for much of what
we consider civilized behavior is, Reich discovered, a function of underlying destructiveness exhibited through the facade.

Destructiveness
Why does the layer of destructiveness form? Reich says that it took him years to understand this process for it takes many
forms, not the least of which is the characters resistance to attempts to melt the armor. Reich found that people reacted with
intense hatred whenever he attempted to disturb the neurotic equilibrium maintained by the armor. Destructiveness bound in
the armor, Reich learned, is anger about frustration of core emotions and needs in general and a denial of sexual
gratification in particular.22 It is an expression of disappointment in love or to loss of love that has become anchored in the
personality through repression of core rage. Reich says that he found that when impulses of rage are allowed full expression
and dealt with in a life-positive manner, they do not lead to muscular armoring and so do not develop into destructive
impulses. The unarmored organism, Reich found, does not have them; Thanatos exists exclusively in the armored.
Only the impulsive character type, says Reich, expresses the secondary layer in a direct way.23 This is the person we
think of as a sociopath or psychopath, the person without scruples, who has no control of his or her destructiveness. The rest
of us manage to keep most of our destructive hate hidden beneath a veil that forms the surface of the character structure. In
the process, however, we present a false face to the world and to ourselves. We are afraid to drop that face because we are
unconsciously afraid that our inner hate will show itself, not to mention the sadness, longing, anxiety, and love trapped
beneath the hate. Insincerity, then, is our way, and we are afraid of behavior that is not calculated, of what is truly
spontaneous and alive.24

Natural Aggression
The destructiveness that forms the secondary layer of armoring is not equivalent, for Reich, to core rage, which is the
organisms natural response to chronic disappointment in gratification of its vital needs. It is not, therefore, a primary
biological phenomenon but a property of armoring and must be distinguished, says Reich, from natural aggression. The
literal meaning of aggression, he points out, is approaching, and, as he says, all life manifestations are aggressive in this
sense.25 Natural aggression, says Reich, is the living manifestation of the musculature, the system of motion and locomotion,
and its goal is to make possible gratification of vital needs.26
Suppression of core drives is suppression of primary desire or natural aggression and leads to the development of
relatively passive adults whose prevalence, according to Reich, allows for the mass psychology of fascism.27 People in
whom natural aggression has been suppressed have not the energy or power to struggle against those who use their
political or economic position to dominate society. Nations of sheep then develop who meekly support or go along with the
various fhrers of the world. In political democracies, the fact that only a minority of citizens even vote is indicative of this
general passivity, which is exhibited in many other ways as well.

In The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Reich points out how and why people in whom primary desire or natural aggression
is suppressed want their leaders to dominate themfor they unconsciously realize their impotence and prefer to leave the
tackling of societys problems to others. As Reich points out in Listen Little Man! we have only sufficient natural aggression
left to raise our arms and say, Sig Heil! before going back to sleep again.28 Suppression of natural genitality and core
impulses and emotions in general, then, does not merely affect us in terms of our ability to find personal happiness and
satisfaction in life but functions to provide the perfect fodder for those who would dominate and fill their pockets on the
suffering of everyone else.
There are those who struggle. They struggle for human rights, for better working conditions, to abolish the ultimate
expression of humanitys underlying hate for life, war, what Gurdjieff, in Beelzebubs Tales, calls the most terrible of all the
horrors that can possibly exist in the whole of the universe.29 That some still stand up against those who would totally
dominate them and destroy the biosphere is an indication that the life force is still strong. But where are those who fight for
the right of infants, children, and adolescents to fully experience the love they feel in their bodies?

Why We Hate
Removal of armoring involves dissolution of all the layers, the peripheral layerthe face that hides the secondary layer
and the deeper layers that cover destructiveness, deep-seated anxiety, heartbreaking sadness, frustrated longing, and so
on. As the peripheral layer begins to dissolve, breakthroughs from the deeper layers occur, and we experience impulses
and emotions repressed throughout the course of our lives. This can be a painful and difficult process, says Reich, which is
why we usually prefer to forgo it and remain false.
But if Reich is correct that the great majority of humankind is armored and if armored organisms cannot love fully, work
wholeheartedly, or work to maximum capacity, how is it that so much has been accomplished in terms of scientific and
technological advance? First of all, a case can be made that those who lead humanitys advance, such as it is, those few
individuals whose lives and work account for much of the progress we like to attribute to mankind and so, via identification,
to ourselves, are and were the least armored and most awake of their time.30
But the few great people aside, one needs only reflect on the number of examples of what Gurdjieff calls the process of
the periodic reciprocal destruction31 that have riddled human history and on the current state of affairs where our creations
threaten to annihilate us and the biosphere as a whole and have made our species an endangered species,32 and questions
concerning the wonders of armored humanity come quickly into perspective. We create, we work, but we end up using our
creations to make war and so destroy our very creations, ourselves, and our fellows on planet Earth. Gurdjieff points out that
the fact that recorded history only goes back a few thousand years, and that we have little evidence of what actually
happened even then, is attributable to our strange predilection, as he calls it, for war, for wars not only destroy people, they
also destroy libraries, buildings, institutions, and so on, i.e., history.33 Better we should sit on the spot like an Indian fakir, for
then we would at least be less dangerous. From Reichs point of view, armored humans create, not due to the armor, but to
the force of life, which has remained stronger. The soft little blade of grass still manages to find its way through cracks in the
cement.
Will the latest wonders, including the computer, be used to further humanitys life-positive goals or to make destruction
even easier and more impersonal? Because of Reichs work, the answer seems ominous if obvious, for he has made us
aware that underneath the false personality, the facade of civilization, is a deep-seated hatred. We hate because we have
been denied gratification of our essential needs, of that which is truly ours, and so deep down we do not care for people of
other races and nationalities; we do not care for the preservation of the land, the water, and the air, or our common mother,
the Earth; we do not care about how we manipulate lovely children into becoming as hard as ourselves as we transmit the
consequences of the organ Kundabuffer from generation to generation.

Notes
1. See CA, pp. 215-98, for a discussion of various character types.
2. CA, pp. 400-1.
3. Ibid., p. 401.
4. Reich viewed such constriction via X-rays. Ibid., p. 402.
5. Reich determined that the fetus is affected by armoring in the mother. RSF, p. 30. See also Rodney Collin, The Theory of
Eternal Life, for a Gurdjieffian perspective on the importance of the fetal period.
6. CA, p. 408.
7. Ibid., pp. 407-30.
8. See FO, p. 242, for further discussion of somatic traits of armor dissolution.
9. CA, pp. 398-9 and 315ff; FO, pp. 266ff; OEB, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 22-31; vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 71-3; vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, pp. 71-84.
10. CA, p. 415.
11. ISM, pp. 153-4.
12. FO, pp. 275, 292-303.
13. CA, pp. 53, 172, 189.
14. See Maurice Sendaks Pierre, a story for children.
15. CA, pp. 178-9.
16. Ibid., pp. 179, 195.
17. See ICSM, pp. 83-6.
18. CA, p. 172.
19. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 160ff.
2 0 . RSF, p. 26; OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 63-7; no. 4, pp. 194-206; vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 121-38; OM, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 65-72; AOI,
no. 1.
21. FO, p. 122.
22. Ibid., p. 124.
23. IC, passim; OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 49-62.
24. FO, p. 124.
25. Ibid., p. 131.
26. Ibid.
27. MPF, passim.
28. BT, p. 107, 1056, and passim.
29. LLM.
30. Walter Hoppe, Great Men in Conflict with the Emotional Plague, OEB, vol. 3, no.1 (January 1951): pp. 4-22; and vol. 3,
no. 2 (April 1951): pp. 99-105.
31. BT, pp. 1055-1118 and passim.
32. See Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Knopf, 1982).
33. BT, pp. 1055-1118.

CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
Buffers and Armoring

Both Gurdjieff and Reich concluded that something blocks free movement and expression of energy in the organism.
Gurdjieff calls the blocks buffers and says for example, that before we can safely go on to higher forms of worktriggering of
the Second Conscious Shock, transmutation of negative emotions and formation of higher-being bodies1we must, as he
puts it, destroy the crust of vices long accumulated and correct old sins,2 which means, for him, destruction of the buffers.
Early in his career, Reich believed that armor and neurosis have their source in a stasis of energy. Later he determined
that psychological blocks or defense mechanisms are rooted in biophysical, chronic muscular contractions. Merging Reichs
and Gurdjieffs concepts, we form the following perspective: buffers are manifestations of chronic muscular armoring. To
destroy them, as Gurdjieff would have us do, is, in Reichs terms, to melt or dissolve the armoring.
Gurdjieff says that essence is ours by birthright but that false personality is not. Reich concluded that core impulses and
emotions are ours by birthright whereas character armor is given to us by a world that hates and fears the core. Gurdjieff
says that negative, destructive emotions have no center, are not a function of the essence. Reich learned that such emotions
are a function of the armor, not the core. Gurdjieff teaches that false personality operates with utter mechanicalness, that we
are unconscious of its existence, its motivation, and its source. Reich has shown why this is the case, with respect to armor,
for he has shown how it is formed in infancy and childhood for the most part when we have no control or understanding of
what is happening to us. By the time we have become adults, false personality, armor, is completely habitual or automatic.
Gurdjieff points out that the greatest stumbling block to beginning work on oneself is our inability to realize how
mechanical we are, a function, for him, of the buffers. Reich has shown why we cling tenaciously to the armoror why it
clings tenaciously to ushow terrified we are of losing it because of the fear of unleashing the secondary layer of
destructiveness, expressing the primary emotions, and experiencing complete surrender in orgasm.3 We in waking-sleep
may be ignorant fools or slugs for maintaining our false faces (as Beelzebubs grandson says), but our false faces protect
us from powerful, destructive impulses that are terrifying to ourselves and to others (we cant expect kids like the grandkid to
understand the pain, can we?). This is the rational basis for our fear of losing the buffers.
Gurdjieff points out that if we attempt higher work before destroying the buffers, we evolve, if anything other than a life of
fantasy, on what he calls a wrong foundation.4 What crystallizes is the crustfalse personalityand this can lead to
crystallization of what he calls a Hasnamuss,5 characterized as a person who has lost contact with his or her conscience
(this compares well with what Reich defines as an Emotional Plague Character6). If we wish to evolve, in Gurdjieffs sense,
it seems to me that we must undergo the process of, in Reichs terms, dissolution of character armor.

Nonidentification
A central teaching of the Gurdjieff Work is the practice of nonidentifying. As we have seen, for Gurdjieff we normally are in
a state of identification with various Is that we take as I. We identify with small problems and forget great aims, we identify
with one thought and forget others, we identify with one feeling or mood and forget wider thoughts, emotions, or moods.7
To practice nonidentifying is, first of all, to practice self-observation: to observe the various Is, moods, thoughts, and
feelings and recognize them for what they aresmall individual aspects of our total person that are not the whole. Here we
separate ourselves from these small parts. We also can remember ourselves, remember and feel the observing I in
connection with the other Is. Such a feeling is of the whole of ourselvesa feeling of that reunites us, that unifies what has
been separated.

Melting Armor and Buffers

However, to be able to consistently practice nonidentification requires a certain flexibility or motility of personality. This
seems to be true by definition: when we are observing ourselves, we are already breaking through the rigidity of taking one
small feeling, thought, or mood as the whole of ourselves. And when we can practice self-observation consistently, it
indicates a flexibility of character structure, to use Reichs term. In Gurdjieffs terminology, for us to be able to practice
nonidentificationnot merely fantasize about practicing it or simply think about itcertain buffers must already have begun
to lose their power. In Reichs terms, it means armor is somewhat melted.
We begin to practice nonidentification while armored, of course, but as more armor dissolves, more energy becomes
available for expansion of the observing I, and the practice can go deeper, become more consistent and effective. On the
other hand, if armor does not melt further, the practice probably would not evolve for it would not receive its required stimulus
or shock, and, as Gurdjieff says, we either give up the work in resignation and bitterness or continue in fantasy.8
Gurdjieff teaches that the buffers are between the Is, which keep the Is separate and relatively unknown to one
another. In Reichs terms, each I is, in part, a function of the armor, of the specific way the armor is anchored in the character
structure. That we are identified with the Is means, in Reichs terms, that we are forced into certain characteristic ways of

behaving, feeling, and thinking by the armor.

Reichs discovery that armor is arranged in segments is, in certain respects, dramatic confirmation of Gurdjieffs teaching
that the buffers divide us into many Is. Reich determined that the armoring literally divides us artificially in such a way that it
is impossible for us to experience or feel ourselves as a whole, to remember ourselves, in other words. Melting of armor
softens the artificial segmentation and literally makes us more unified.

Melting Buffers and Sexual Health

Reich discovered that orgastic potency accompanies dissolution of armor, and the central tenet of his understanding of
health and disease is that orgastic potency is necessary for maintenance of an unarmored, healthy state. Gurdjieff taught
that only people who are completely normal sexually have a chance in the Work; that, in other words, people whose
sexuality is governed by buffers cannot get anywhere via the Work; and that the sex center must work properly, with its own
energy, for the organism to evolve beyond the level of waking-sleep.
If dissolution of buffers is necessary for effective practice of the Work, and if dissolution of buffers means, biophysically,
dissolution of armor, then the conclusion seems inescapable that establishment of orgastic potency is essential for
development of the capacity to work on oneself effectively. One need not worry about it, though, for it happens naturally
along with the destruction of the buffers during a process of such destructionit is a consequence of itif this analysis of
Gurdjieffs ideas and Reichs discoveries is accurate.
Via Reichs work, we have evidence as to the nature of what Gurdjieff called sexual normalcy: it is orgastic potency, as
Reich defined it. Gurdjieffs notions of sexual fear, strange tastes, and constantly working buffers also gain clarity via Reich.
Fears, in Reichs terms, means underlying anxiety; strange tastes, sexual perversions due to an inability to experience
direct genital gratification; buffers, of course, the armor.
To say of us in waking-sleep that our centers borrow unused sex energy from the sex center and that the sex center
borrows energy from the other centers is to say that unused sex energy becomes armor and is released unconsciously in
activities with no healthy connection to genitalityfor example, as mentioned, when we gather in groups, in church, at
conventions, parties, and so on more for sexual titillation than for the alleged purpose of the group. Furthermore, when sex
energy is used by another center, says Gurdjieff, it can be recognized by a particular taste, by a fervor or vehemence that
belies the nature of the activity.
Gurdjieff gives a number of examples of this: instead of simply writing his book stating what he knows, doesnt know,
believes, and so on, the philosopher, scientist, or political scientist is always fighting, disputing, criticizing, creating new
subjective theories, which, for Gurdjieff, is symptomatic of a borrowing of sex energy by the thinking center. When the
emotional center uses sex energyor misuses it, to be more accuratethe person, for example, might fervently preach
abstinence, asceticism, the fear and horror of sin and the eternal fire, or might work up revolutions, rob, kill.9 In the chapter on
Russia in Beelzebubs Tales, there is an analysis of Bolshevism, which is put in this light1 0 (which parallels nicely with
Reichs analysis of what he called red fascism in his book on the mass psychology of fascism). When the moving center
borrows sex energy, it becomes obsessed with, let us say, breaking records instead of simply the pleasure of the activity. All
of this misuse of sex energy, says Gurdjieff, is characterized by the uselessness of the work.11 This is not to say that all
writing, preaching, or sports activity involves centers borrowing sex energy. The key is in how the activities are carried out,
an analysis in complete accord with Reichs understanding that how a person behaves is more expressive of underlying
motivation than what he says or does.
When we in waking-sleep have sex, it is not pure genitality that goes on but sex mixed with other suppressed impulses
and emotions such as destructiveness, longing, sadness, or anxiety. Perhaps a man feels the impulse to dominate a woman,
fuck her, pierce her; a woman feels the need to be dominated, to be fucked. Perhaps the partners use the sexual
experience to try and create a feeling of love (make love) when none is therean expression of longing and anxiety. But
when armor or buffers melt, such a mixture or confusion of feelings is less likely. Sex is sex, anger is anger, anxiety is
anxiety, and they are not confused. Thus to say, with Gurdjieff, that sex plays a crucial role in creating a permanent center of
gravity is to say, in Reichs terms, that the orgastically potent individual is unified, not divided by armor. (Here I am speaking
of the ideal type. In reality, most of us, of course, fall on a spectrum of orgastic potency and orgastic impotence.)

Did Reich and Gurdjieff Understand Sex in the Same Way?

Gurdjieffs notion that the other centers are subordinate to the sex center when it works properly is to say, in Reichs
terms, that it is only when we experience periodic, gratifying orgastic release that we can function to capacity in other areas
of life. The other centers are subordinate to the sex center because its proper functioning makes their proper functioning
possible. For Gurdjieff, of course, such healthy functioning leads to formation of higher-being bodies, and in this teaching,
Gurdjieff enters a realm that Reich had nothing whatsoever to do with.
Although these parallels can be drawn, it does not mean that Gurdjieff understood sexuality the way Reich did. Gurdjieffs
teaching comes from ancient sources, and we have no idea of the means of verification used by them or, for that matter, by
Gurdjieff himselffor he did not say. With Reich, on the other hand, we know how he came to his theories and the means he
used to test his hypotheses; thus it would be presumptuous to infer that Gurdjieff understood the function of the orgasm as
did Reich.
That Gurdjieff considered healthy sexuality central in the process of the evolution of consciousness, there can be no

doubt, but as to what he meant by complete sexual gratification, by proper working of the sex center, and whether or not he
understood the dynamics of the orgasm reflex is impossible to say. Teachers of Gurdjieffs ideas since his death focus on
aspects of his work other than the development of the proper working of the sex center, although considering the centrality of
this function for Gurdjieff, this would appear to be an essential need. Since Gurdjieff provides little information with regard to
it, however, it is understandable why study of it is usually omitted. If we wish to understand genitality, then, we must turn to
Reich, for it was he that discovered the nature of the complete orgasm, thereby affording us an opportunity to understand
sexuality that can be found nowhere else.

Notes
1. ISM, pp. 64-8, 141-2.
2. VFRW, p. 234.
3. FO, pp. 136ff.
4. ISM, pp. 32-3.
5. BT, p. 235 and passim.
6. CB, pp. 401, 410; EGD, pp. 74-80; CA, pp. 508, 555-99; LLM, passim; TMC, passim.
7. ISM, p. 150.
8. This is seen more clearly via Gurdjieffs concept of the octave. See ISM, pp. 81, 122, 124-37, and passim.
9. ISM, p. 258.
10. BT, p. 621-41.
11. ISM, p. 258.

PART III
Reichs Discovery of the Prime-Source Biological
Life Energy
All species have originative or moving power (chi). When they obtain water, they become small organisms like silk. In a
place bordering water and land, they become lichens. Thriving on the bank, they become moss. On the fertile soil, they
become weeds . . . All things come from the originative process of nature and return to the originative process of nature.
Tung-kuo Tzu asked Chuang Tzu, What is called Taowhere is it?
It is everywhere, replied Chuang Tzu.
Tung-kuo Tzu said, It will not do unless you are more specific.
It is in the ant, said Chuang Tzu.
Why go so low down?
It is in the weeds.
Why even lower?
It is in a potsherd.
Why still lower?
It is in the excrement and urine, said Chuang Tzu. Tung-kuo gave no response.
Chuang Tzu in Wing-Tsit Chan,
A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy

CHAPTER ONE
Explaining the Orgasm Function
I

ts one thing to claim that sexual health or orgastic potency is an important prerequisite to the evolution of consciousness
in human beings, that the sexual function is involved in the process of creation of higher-being bodies via saturation of the
body with a fine form of energy, but another to develop a hypothesis as to how this process may work. Gurdjieff did not
provide one (nor did anyone else that I know of), but via Reichs discoveries, I believe such an explanation can be offered.
Before being able to derive the hypothesis, we need to look at some of Reichs discoveries. As we do so, let us try to
remember our general aim: to formulate an explanation or description as to how sexuality functions in what Gurdjieff calls
the evolution of consciousness so to be better able to apply this idea in our own lives, as well as our more specific aim, to
develop an explanation of how the sex center functions in the process of saturating the cells of the body with the correct
energy so that crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body can occur.

Sexual Excitement and Fluid Movements

Earlier we saw that Reich had come to study the orgasm function in a way that was unique among psychoanalysts and,
for that matter, for anyone in history. Once he began to understand the dynamics and function of the orgasm, he was faced
with the question of how it could be explained. The prevailing hypothesis during the 1930s was that sexuality was a function
of the filling and emptying of blood in the genitalstumescence and detumescenceand the ejaculation of semen. In other
words, sexual excitement and gratification were explained simply as the result of the movement and ejaculation of body
fluids (and the male was the model, not the female).
Reich says, however, that in his experience, many male patients had been erectively and ejaculatively potent yet had
suffered from an inability to experience pleasurable excitation or gratification. With such men, in other words, blood filled the
genitals and semen was ejaculated, yet the phenomena of pleasurable excitation and gratification were absent. This
clinically observed fact put the prevailing theory into serious question because it failed to explain these two essential
aspects of the orgasm function.
The explanation also failed to account for sexual experience in healthy women. Reich had determined that healthy
women experience orgasm, and the orgasm reflex, in a way that is no different from healthy men; thus those who thought the
hypothesis of fluid movementnot clearly apparent in womenexplained sexuality had no way to comprehend female
sexuality and often concluded that lack of orgasm is natural in women.1
Reichvia reports from his patients, interviews he conducted with others, and his own personal sexual experiencewas
also aware of other aspects of sexual experiences in sexually healthier people (people that reported deep gratification in
sexual intercourse) that could not be explained by the prevailing theory. For example, the series of involuntary spasms that
occur in the orgasm reflex, the sensation of radiation of excitation throughout the body reported by sexually healthy men and
women, the almost-irresistible urge for complete contact between the penis and vagina once the organs touch in healthy
men and women. He was also aware of other issues the prevailing theory could not adequately deal with. For example, why
if the vagina is dry, little or no pleasure is experienced; why slow, undulating movements produce more pleasure in healthy
men and women rather than harsh rapid ones; why the genitals suddenly become refractory to further excitation after
orgasmwhy, in other words, sexually gratified individuals cannot be further excited.2 Then there was the special sexual
resonance that sometimes occurs between men and women, called sex appeal, sexual magnetism, etc., heretofore
unexplained or explained only mystically.3
Furthermore, in his clinical practice, Reich had witnessed certain somatic (physiological) phenomena that he believed
had to be accounted for as well. Reich had begun working directly on constricted muscles when he realized that talking to
patients and even pointing out their character traits did not always lead to breakup or movement in the armor. He might thus
move a patients head, bend his or her neck, pinch the shoulder muscles, palpate the stomach, and so on to stimulate
movement in the constricted area. This is not to say Reich stopped using character analysistalking to patients, mirroring
their behavior, pointing out armor, and so onbut only that he added a hands-on approach to his repertoire. He also added
conscious breathing once he realized that every patient was inhibited in their respiratory function and that increased
breathing intensified the stimulation, which eventually led to expression of blocked feelings and thoughts and armor
dissolution. During therapy, patients began to tremble involuntarily, muscles jerked, patients experienced sensations of hot
and cold, itching, crawling, prickling sensations, gooseflesh, and so on. As therapy progressed and armor gave way, the
somatic manifestations sometimes unified into a complete orgasm reflex in which, involuntarily and spontaneously, the
shoulders convulsed with the chest toward the diaphragm, the diaphragm bent or gave, the neck also bent, and the head
gently dropped back in a posture reminiscent of surrender. This convulsion occurred spontaneously and repeatedly in one
unitary convulsion that continued until all the tension was released. Reich says that patients who exhibited the orgasm reflex
during therapy (without sexual sensations) became capable of experiencing it during intercourse and found that intercourse
was accompanied by greater release of sexual tension, more pleasure, and a deeper sense of gratification than if the reflex
did not occur.4
Given such observations, it seemed to Reich that the theory of fluid movement and ejaculation was clearly inadequate as

an account of the sexual function.

Sexuality and Anxiety

Reich claims that the orgasm had never been studied in detail in terms of the physiological processes that occur during
both the excitation phase and the release phase.5 On the other hand, it was obvious to him that the orgasm, a physiological
phenomenon, affects the mind in that one experiences a release of psychic tension upon its completion. Furthermore, Reich
found that the completeness of the orgasm depends upon the amount of sexual excitation at the genitals and the
completeness of its ebbing away after acme.6 Together, these observations pointed to the probability that behind the
psychical experiences of sexual tension and relaxation were physiological processes.
Freud, as we have seen, had postulated the very same thing. In 1885, Freud had noted that patients suffering from acute
anxiety states had characteristic sexual disturbances,7 and he had concluded that such states were the product of blocked
physical energy that was experienced by the psyche as anxiety. Reich had made observations confirming Freuds early
hypothesis, to the effect that when patients do not become conscious of sensual sexual excitationsthat is, specific
physiological sensationsthey experience anxiety, located, they reported, in the heart and diaphragm regions; whereas
when they do become conscious of sexual excitations, anxiety disappears, and the sexual organs become turgid (erection,
vaginal lubrication).8
Anxiety, Reich noted, is often accompanied by physiological symptoms, such as cold shivers, pallor of the skin, dryness of
the vagina, shrinking of the penis, and so on, whereas sexual excitation is accompanied by feelings of warmth, turgidity,
secretion in the genitals, diastolic excitation (a quiet heart), and so on. It seemed to Reich, in other words, that anxiety is
symptomatically opposite to sexual excitation. Sexual excitement is characterized by feelings and sensation of pleasurable
expansion, anxiety by unpleasurable contraction.9 The two functionssexuality and anxietytherefore, appeared
antithetical aspects of a single common function.
The theory of fluid movement attempted to explain sexual pleasure in physiological terms but had nothing to say
regarding anxiety. Reich, however, believed the functions were linked and decided to look elsewhere for their physiological
basis. As a medical doctor and student of biology, he was aware that the vegetative nervous system functions in both
expansion and contraction. The parasympathetic system predominates in expansion, and the sympathetic system, in
contraction. It was known that the sympathetic nervous system functions in anxiety, and Reich wondered if the
parasympathetic system functioned in sexuality.
Reich says that experiments known as the Misch Choline Experiments provided evidence that he was thinking along
the right lines. In these experiments, it was shown that choline, a chemical stimulant of the parasympathetic nervous system,
could alleviate anxiety by activation of the parasympathetic system.10 When choline was introduced into an organism, the
peripheral blood vessels of the skin dilated, the heart slowed down, blood pressure lowered, an increase in salivary
secretion occurred, the pupils constricted, and muscles regained their normal tone.11 These symptoms had much in common
with what happened during sexual excitation.
Based on such considerations, Reich hypothesized that when the body becomes sexually excited, the parasympathetic
system becomes activated and that when we feel anxiety, the sympathetic system becomes activated. In this hypothesis, he
had unified sexuality and anxiety as opposite reactions of the same system, the vegetative nervous system. He had also
connected the psychic experiences of sexuality and anxiety with a physiological process.

The Bioelectric Experiments

Reich says that the issue before him at this point was the dynamics of this relationship: how the functioning of a
physiological system led to the psychic experiences of sexual tension, gratification, and anxiety. He reports that during this
period, he thoroughly researched the relevant literature and became familiar with Friedrich Krauss experiments in which the
body had been found to be governed by electrical processes.12 Reichs study of these experiments led him to wonder if
sexuality and anxiety could be a result of the movement of some form of bioenergy triggered by the nerve plexuses of the
vegetative nervous system. The plexuses, Reich thought, being highly concentrated centers of neurological activity, would
function as the source of the bioenergy.13
Krauss experiments had indicated that when two body surfaces are in friction, a bioelectrical charge builds up. The penis
and vagina are two such body surfaces. Reich wondered if a buildup of bioelectrical charge occurs when they come in
contact and if a discharge of bioelectricity occurs at acme.
It was known that muscular contractions per se are accompanied by a discharge of electrical energy. Reich had
discovered that the orgasm reflex involves involuntary contractions of the genitals and of the body musculature as a whole.
These and other considerations pointed to the possibility that bioelectricity was discharged in the orgasm.14
Reich now had the ingredients with which to formulate a testable hypothesis: the nerve plexuses generate bioelectricity,
which expands via the parasympathetic system in sexuality or pleasure and contracts via the sympathetic system in anxiety
or unpleasure. He devised a series of experiments to determine if the sexual organs in a state of excitation show an increase
in bioelectrical charge 15 and designed an apparatus that could measure changes in electric current on the surface of the
body.16
Via these experiments, Reich found that the erogenous zones, the parts of the body especially prone to sexual

sensationsthe anus, lips, nipples, penis, mucous membranes of the vagina, earlobe, tongue, palms, and forehead
showed a very different bioelectrical response than the rest of the body surface. Ordinary skin maintained an even, steady
potential while the erogenous zones showed a wandering wavelike kind of line, which rose well above or dipped well
below that potential.17
These results indicated that the erogenous zones are fundamentally different from the rest of the body in terms of
excitability. That the difference could be measured electrically indicated that some form of current was involved. Reich says
that the wavy pattern at the erogenous zones indicated that the current was probably not electromagnetic in nature, for he
tested various electric devices with the apparatus he had designed, and electromagnetic energy showed a completely
different kind of pattern.

Bioelectricity, Pleasure, and Anxiety

The most fascinating results of these experiments had to do with the relationship of bioelectric potential to subjective
psychological experiences of pleasure and anxiety. For these results made it even more probable that physiological
processes are at the root of the psychic experiences of sexual excitement. (Philosophers take note: herein lies the basis for a
solution to the so-called mind/body problem.)
The basic finding was that the recorded bioelectrical potential at the erogenous zones rose above that of ordinary skin
only when the subject being tested reported pleasurable sensations at that zone. Erectionof a nipple or penisalone did
not cause the bioelectrical potential to rise. The erection had to be accompanied by pleasurable sensations. When anxietyproducing stimuli were administered, and subjects reported feeling anxious, the bioelectrical potential at the erogenous
zones dipped below that of ordinary skin.18 An unexpected shock such as shouting at a person caused rapid decreases at
the erogenous zones but not at the rest of the body surface. Annoyance also showed bioelectric decrease, and when
subjects were in a state of anxious anticipation, all electrical reactions decreased, and increases, says Reich, could not be
brought about. Fright caused the sharpest decrease.19 These results were evidence in favor of Reichs hypothesis that
sexuality and anxiety were two sides of a unitary bioelectric process.
Another result of these experiments proved extremely fruitful to Reich. He had subjects take deep breaths while an
electrode was placed at the abdomen above the umbilicus, and he noted a sharp decrease in potential during inhalation
and an increase during exhalation. This was a puzzling result, for what could breathing have to do with bioelectrical skin
potential, pleasure, and anxiety? On the other hand, Reich had already noted that healthy individuals breathe more deeply
as they become more excited during intercourse, and he had also utilized breathings stimulating effect in therapy.

The Bioelectric Field Theory

These and other findings and considerations led Reich to a preliminary theory that connected the physiological
bioelectric findings with his subjects feelings and experiences. He hypothesized that there is a continuous bioelectrical field
between the center of the organism (where the nerve ganglia are situated) and the skin (where the differences in potential
were registered).20 When a person feels pleasure, he theorized, there is a movement of bioelectricity from the nerve ganglia
to the skin, an expansion from the center of the organs to the periphery. When a person feels unpleasure or anxiety, he
reasoned, the reverse occursbioelectricity moves inward, toward the center from the periphery.21 This theory accounted for
the sensations that accompany anxietyof being cold, of oppression in the chest and stomach areas, and so onfor if the
theory was correct, bioelectricity is concentrated in the area of the plexuses where anxiety is usually localized.
To account for the way bioelectricity moved from the plexus to the skin surface, Reich hypothesized that the plexuses
themselves are capable of expanding and contracting. He reasoned that when we experience pleasure, the ganglia expand
and charge the membranes of the surrounding tissue via the electrolytic fluids between the membranes of the ganglia and
the tissue. The charging process then continues on out to the skin surface where an increase in bioelectrical potential was
registered.
During anxiety, the process, Reich theorized, would work in reverse, with transfer of charge moving from the skin to the
center where the ganglia would contract and build up a charge. On the skin, this registered as a decrease in skin potential.
Later, the ganglia would discharge again, and the process would continue, alternating between charge and discharge,
contraction and expansion, a process expressive of pulsation, similar, in a general way, to the pulsational processes of the
pulmonary system (systole, diastole), respiration (inhale, exhale), digestion and excretion, and so on.
At the time he developed this theory, Reich had no way of verifying it directly. It was not merely speculative, however,
since it was based on the results of the bioelectric experiments and explained the results more comprehensively than other
extant theories.

The Orgasm Formula

Reich organized his observations and theories concerning the process of healthy sexuality in the orgasm formula, also
known as the function of tension and charge. The initial phase of the process, he called mechanical tension, when the
sex organs fill with fluid. There was no question that fluid movement occurred during sexual excitation; the only questions
were what it was based on and whether it was the reason for the sensations of pleasure. Reich did not think so and
postulated the second step as bioelectric charge, when an intense excitation occurs. It is this phase that was the cause of
the pleasure. This is followed, Reich thought, by bioelectric discharge, when the muscles contract, discharging the

excitation. The final phase, he called mechanical relaxation, when the genitals relax and the body fluids flow back to the
body.22

Is Bioelectricity Really Electrical?

Reich now had a model with which to work with and a theory of how sexuality and anxiety function, yet more questions
remained than had been answered via his hypothesis. One question had to do with whether or not bioelectricity is a form of
electromagnetism. By this time, Reich thought that it was not. He had noted in certain experiments that bioelectricity and
electromagnetism move at different speeds and in different ways. There appeared to be both quantitative and qualitative
differences between them. Bioelectricity, Reich observed, appeared to move much more slowly than electromagnetic
energy, measured, he says, in millimeters per second.23 Furthermore, bioelectricity appeared to move in an undulating
fashion, as seen in the wandering wavelike lines on the oscillograph, whereas when Reich tested electromagnetic
appliances such as lamps, they showed sharp, angular lines. These and other considerations24 led Reich to the belief that
the kind of energy he was studying was not electromagnetic in nature.
Exactly what this bioenergy was, Reich did not yet know. Still, these researches took him a long way toward a better
understanding of sexuality, anxiety, and the orgasm and were crucial in what was his most monumental discovery, that of the
life force itself. It is this discovery that makes his work most relevant to Gurdjieffs teaching, for, as we have seen, Gurdjieff
postulated that at the basis of everything is a force, an energy, and that the evolution of consciousness is the evolution of
some form of this energy within human beings.

Notes
1. IC, pp. 125ff.
2. Ibid., p. 127-8.
3. Ibid., p. 127. Mario Puzo, in The Godfather, for example, calls sexual magnetism the thunderbolt.
4. FO, pp. 276ff.
5. Ibid., pp. 242-3.
6. IC, p. 124.
7. Ibid., p. 88.
8. Ibid., p. 92.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 94.
11. Ibid., p. 95.
12. Ibid., pp. 108ff; FO, p. 243. Friedrich Kraus, Allgemeine und Spezielle Pathologie der Person (Leipzig: Thieme, 1926).
13. See IC, 83ff, for a summary of the research that led to Reichs hypothesis. Also FO, pp. 243ff, and CA, pp. 373ff.
14. FO, pp. 243ff.
15. SW, p. 185.
16. Ibid.
17. BISA, pp. 133-9.
18. FO, pp. 331.
19. BISA, pp. 147, 158.
20. Ibid., p. 334.
21. And beyond in the bioelectric, later orgone energy, field that surrounds the organisms.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., p. 339.
24. SW, p. 187, 188.

CHAPTER TWO
Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy
Discovery of the Bions

The hypothesis that some form of bioelectricity, apparently different from electromagnetism, functions in human beings

led Reich to consider the possibility that it functions in all living organisms. He decided to approach this question by first
studying single-celled organisms and obtained a sample of protozoaparamecia and amoebacontained in an infusion of
hay and water for this purpose.1
Reich tested for a bioelectric response in these organisms by applying a current to them and found that the paramecia
reacted to the current. This interested him, but something of even greater importance occurred, although Reich did not
understand it at the time.
During the experiment, he noticed that the swelling hay appeared to disintegrate into organisms similar in structure to the
amoebae. The original protozoa, it was assumed, had entered the infusion from the air, yet here was an observation to the
effect that some of them seemed to emerge from a breakdown of the plant fiber. Living organisms, in other words, appeared
to have emerged from dead matter, which, according to the basic tenets of biology, simply could not be the case.2
Reich claims that he replicated this phenomena many times. Vesicles that took on characteristics very much like those of
single-celled organismsthey stretched out, elongated, contracted, or, in a word, pulsatedappeared to emerge from the
swelled and disintegrating plant fiber.3 After devising a way to apply time-lapse photography so that the entire process could
be recordedit could take days, weeks, or monthsReich conducted experiments that he claims validated the original
observations: when plant material was placed in water, where it swelled, amoeba and other protozoa were generated.4
Those of us not in science probably cannot appreciate what a revolutionary phenomena Reich appeared to be
witnessing. This was biogenesis, the creation of life out of nonliving matter, and was something that wasnt supposed to
occur anymore. Evolutionary theory had it that it occurred eons agobut not now and not over and over again in relatively
simple laboratory experiments and, presumably, all over the planet when conditions were right. And let no one think that
Reich simply or naively accepted what he saw. He couldnt believe it, or at least he questioned his senses as any biologist
would, for his findings were impossible, at least according to established biological belief. Reich tried the same procedure
with other material besides dead plant fiberwith earth, for example, and found that it, too, produced vesicles that later
emerged from it as independent organisms.5
He tells us that he boiled some preparations while observing strict sterilization techniques, reasoning that boiling would
destroy any organisms that may have entered from the air. The boiled preparations, says Reich, exhibited more active
vesicular forms than unboiled preparations,6 an indication that the boiling had a stimulating effect on production of the motile
organisms. Here was another odd and totally unexpected result, one that puzzled him greatly. But it appeared to prove that
the organisms could not have come from the air since, he reasoned, boiling would have killed any that had. Control
preparations that he used did not produce the same effect.
Eventually, Reich used water immersion lenses at a magnification of 2300x to 3000x in order to view the preparations in
their live state, and use of these lenses enabled him to make another extremely important observation, namely, he saw
pulsation in the newly created entities.7 Reich reports that the vesicles appeared to be alive, for they stretched out,
elongated, moved around, exhibited forms of division reminiscent of cellular mitosis, and a form of eating or ingestion of
other vesicles. Still, he says, they appeared to move differently than fully alive cellstheir movements were abrupt, slow,
tremulous, and, in general, mechanical. Reich hypothesized that these vesicles were not fully alive protozoa but represented
a preliminary stage of life, a transitionary form between the nonliving and the living, and named them bions.
Reich had also seen protozoa emerge from the disintegrating matter but had not observed them developing directly from
the bions. Reich reports that he eventually was able to culture protozoa from bions, evidence that bions are transitionary
forms of life.8
Overall, Reich found that organic matter such as wood, coal, dust, metal, dead plant matter, and so on when grated into
small enough particles and placed in a solution that caused swelling of the particles would break down into microscopic
vesicles composed of a membrane and a fluid content. The vesicles moved as a whole, exhibited internal movements,
sometimes divided and ingested other vesicles, and protozoa could be cultured from them, which did not come from
unnoticed spores already present.9
The vesicles pulsed, indicating, to Reich, that they might be governed by bioelectric processes. Reich subjected the
vesicles to electric current, and the bions, like the protozoa tested earlier, reacted to the current. Later Reich says that he
observed the same pulsation and bioelectric response in protozoa of all kinds.
He did not conclude at this time that life is a function of bioelectricity. Yet he had made a number of observations with
provocative implications. His investigation into the nature of sexuality and anxiety had resulted in the discovery of bioelectric
functions within people and led to his formulation of the orgasm formula (the tension-charge formula). Utilization of these
ideas on the microscopic level had led him to the discovery that microorganisms emerge from the swelling and

disintegration of dead matter and that they function bioelectrically, that is, via the same general principles as human
sexuality and emotion. Here were a series of observations and realizations that would blow anyones mindand Reich tells
us that he was flabbergasted and frightened by what he had observed. But he was like a bulldog once he got going on a
project and had the courage to continue to follow what he later would call the red thread of scientific logic, moving
progressively from one step to the next even if what he was finding was frighteningly new and revolutionary.

The Discovery of Bion Radiation

Reich had seen that bions and protozoa pulsate, and he had reason to believe that sexuality is a pulsational process as
wellone among many exhibited in living organismsbut he did not as yet know why. He suspected that at the root of
pulsation was the movement of bioelectrical energy but did not understand it. He believed at this time that the energy
functioned according to the tension-charge formula; was the energetic basis of sexuality, pleasure, anxiety, and the
emotions in general; that it functioned within single-celled organisms; and appeared to be at the root of the formation of
bions from organic matter.
At this point in his research, an accident occurred that led to a series of astounding observations. Reich had been
studying various materials including ocean sand, and an assistant of his accidentally heated a test tube of it to
incandescence. Reich examined the culture after it had cooled and found, to his surprise, that the heating of the sand had
caused a culture of bions to form.10
This intrigued him, and he spent a great deal of time observing the culture microscopically. As he studied it, another
unexpected thing happened: his eyes were becoming severely irritated as he gazed through the microscope at the culture.
Eventually he developed a severe case of conjunctivitis in both eyes. Reich came to believe that the irritation was directly
related to his study of the culture, indicating that some form of radiation may be emitted by the culture.11
Reich tested for this possibility in a number of ways, first by simply placing the test tube containing the culture against the
palm of his hand. He thought he felt a fine prickling sensation on his palm. He then placed a quartz slide with the bion
culture in potassium chloride solution on his skin and let it stand for ten minutes, when a definite skin irritation appeared. He
tried these tests with a number of students and found that some gave a positive reaction while others showed little or no
reaction. Those who gave a positive reaction, says Reich, were those whom he previously had judged to be more
emotionally alive or less armored.
Thinking that the sand culture emitted some form of radiation, Reich had it tested by a physicist who used an electroscope
normally employed to test for other forms of radiation. The electroscope gave no reaction, and the physicist declared that no
radiation was emitted by the culture. Reich objected that the proper scientific conclusion was that there was no radiation of
the kind normally tested for by electroscopes, namely, radium activity or ionization effects, not that there was no radiation of
any kind.12 He could not believe the culture emitted no radiation for he had witnessed a number of severe effects. He says
that he was amazed at how fast his skin had become irritated, for it indicated that enormous energies were at work. X-ray
and radium radiation takes several days after exposure to produce reddening of the skin, whereas the sand culture
produced such an effect after a few minutes.13 After two more weeks, Reich says the palm of his hand had become highly
inflamed and very painful.
Furthermore, an effect of a different kind occurred: the air in the room in which the cultures were kept began to seem
heavy and caused headaches when the windows were closed for only an hour. Reich says that he noticed another strange
phenomena: all the metal objects in the room appeared to have become highly magnetic.14 Each of these occurrences
pointed to the possibility that the cultures were emitting some form of radiation, but the fact that the electroscope registered
no radiation effect was puzzling.
Reich was familiar with photographic techniquehe had already learned to apply time-lapse photography in the early
bion experimentsand so he set up an experiment using photographic plates with the sand bion cultures, thinking that the
plates might become fogged if any radiation was emitted by the cultures. He placed cultures on some of the plates and left
them uncovered, put some on plates with plate holders, on plates wholly covered with lead, and on plates partially covered
with lead. For control purposes, he left some plates uncovered without cultures on them. What resulted, says Reich, was that
all the plates became fogged, even those completely covered with lead and those without cultures on them.15
He had been careful not to allow the plates to become fogged by a light source; thus the conclusion that the plates had
been affected by a form of radiation from the cultures was hard to avoid. That all the plates had been affected, Reich says,
indicated that the radiation had spread throughout the room, and the fact that even the lead-covered plates had been fogged
indicated that the form of radiation Reich was experimenting with could penetrate lead.
Reich moved the operation to a dark basement, prepared dozens of sand bion cultures, and replicated the photographic
plate results. Furthermore, he says that once his eyes had become accustomed to the dark, he noticed that the room
appeared grayish blue instead of black; and soon, he says, he noticed foglike vapors, streaks of blue light, and dots darting
about.16 He reports that a deep violet light seemed to come from the walls and the objects around them.
To test for the possibility that the light impressions were purely subjective, he used a magnifying glass since if the
impressions were in his own eyes, they would not be affected by magnification. Use of the magnifying glass only intensified
the impressions and made the streaks and dots grow larger, however, evidence that they were in the room, not just in his
eyes. He also used sunglasses and found that the impressions were weakened. The light impressions continued even after
he closed his eyes, indicating the radiation penetrated the skin.

Reich repeated these experiments many times and each time, he says, obtained similar results. One evening, he spent
five hours in the basement and reports that he began to observe radiation and light phenomena as if it were coming from the
palm of his hand, the sleeve of his shirt, and the hair on his head (via a mirror). He says that a blue glimmer surrounded his
body and objects in the basement like a hazy, slow-moving, luminous gray blue vapor.17
I wonder if it is possible for us to imagine what Reich must have been going through at the time. His training and
background had been in Western-oriented, scientific method. He, as much as any of Freuds students, had been a
proponent of a scientific approach toward emotional illness,1 8 and Freud had appointed him head of the psychoanalytic
training seminar partly for this reason. Yet he was now witnessing a series of incredible events that had no explanation in
terms of everything he had been trained to expect.
He says that he did not reject his observations, however, because he could not. They were repeatablethe same
experimental setup produced the same experimental results. This is not to say that he would not have liked to have been
able to reject them, for, as he says, they were extremely upsetting and frightening.19 Instead, he invited a completely
uninformed scientist into the basement as well as many others, and all of them, says Reich, confirmed the majority of his
observations. One subject told Reich something that proved extremely useful and even prophetic: that after spending time in
the basement, he felt as if hed been staring into the sun for a long period of time.20

The Discovery of Orgone Energy

Reich had set up an experiment with an electroscope and to prevent electric shock had used rubber gloves for insulation.
At some point when he put his hands, wearing the gloves, near the electroscope, it reacted as if radiation was being emitted
by the gloves.21 He had no idea what might have been the cause of this; thus he searched the laboratory, questioned his
assistants, finally realizing that the gloves he had been wearing had been lying near some sand bion cultures. Could the
gloves have absorbed radiation from the cultures?
Reich tested the instruments for defects, found none, and tried the experiment again. Each time he placed his hands,
wearing the gloves, near the electroscope, it reacted positively. A physicist, we remember, had tested the cultures with an
electroscope and had gotten no reaction. The test, however, had been done directly on the cultures, whereas in this case it
was carried out through the medium of the rubber. Did this have any significance in terms of the type of radiation involved?
Reich set up experiments with other organic materials such as hard rubber, paper, cotton, wool, and cellulose and found
that each of the materials, after being in contact with the sand bion cultures, caused the electroscope to react positively, an
indication that organic material in general absorbed the radiation emitted by the sand bion cultures.22
These experiments were conducted over a long period of time and under various atmospheric conditions. Because of
this, Reich was able to note certain very interesting phenomena. Under certain weather conditions, the effect of the organic
material on the electroscope would disappear, namely, when the atmosphere was humid or in shade combined with a
strong breeze. The full significance of these observations was not evident at the time.
For control purposes, Reich had intermittently tested material that had not been in contact with the cultures and had
usually gotten negative results. One time, however, he says he obtained positive results with a pair of gloves that had not
been in contact with the cultures, at least not in close contact. This result, Reich says, reminded him of the photographic
plate experiment in which plates not in contact with the cultures had become fogged, and he again had the thought that the
radiation was capable of dispersing throughout the room.
He even had the thought that the radiation might be a form of solar radiation, an idea that had occurred to him when the
physicist had insisted that no form of radiation was emitted by the cultures, for, he had reasoned at the time, solar radiation
was not a form of radiation normally detected by electroscopes. Furthermore, the bions in the culture that appeared to emit
the radiation had been obtained from the breakdown of ocean sand, which he thought might be a form of solidified solar
energy. They did cause irritation of the eyes and reddening of the skin, and one observer of the light phenomena in the
basement had remarked that it felt as if hed been staring at the sun. Then, of course, there were the strange light
impressions within the basement itself.
If the radiation phenomena was a form of solar radiation, Reich reasoned it would literally be everywhere on the planet,
even within organisms and objects since he had observed that it appeared to penetrate the skin and even lead.23 He
decided to see if he could determine if humans emitted the energy and, for these experiments, combined procedures from
the experiments with the sand bion cultures (the absorption property of the rubber gloves) and from the bioelectric
experiments (the fact that bioelectric potential had been measured in human subjects).
He first tested a rubber glove via the electroscope and obtained a negative reaction, in order to ensure that the glove had
not absorbed any radiation. He then placed the glove on the abdomen of a human subject whom he judged to be
emotionally alive or relatively unarmored, and he left it in place. (During this time, Reich had continued to practice as a
therapist. This gave him experience in determining the relative emotional liveliness or armored condition of people.) After
from five to fifteen minutes, he tells us that he tested the glove on the electroscope and obtained a positive reaction. He
repeated this experiment a number of times with different subjects and obtained similar results, an indication to Reich that
the same form of radiation that was emitted by the sand bions functioned in human beings. Reich tried the experiment with
armored, emotionally weaker subjects as well and found that the electroscopic reaction was weaker, a result that
harmonized with previous findings.

He also asked his subjects to breathe deeply while the glove remained in place on the abdomen and found that the
electroscopic reaction was strong with deep breathing and weaker with shallow breathing. Breathing had been shown to
influence bioelectric skin potential as well so that he now had further evidence that depth of breathing is in significant
relation to the energy effects he was studying, a result he was able to utilize in his clinical practice once he realized that
deep breathing has a stimulating effect on the movement or pulsation of the energy within humans.
To test for the possibility that the energy was solar in origin, he says he placed rubber gloves that had tested out
negatively on the electroscope in bright sunlight for from five to fifteen minutes. He found that the gloves, when brought in
contact with the electroscope, gave a positive reaction, an indication that the radiation very well might be solar in origin and,
therefore, literally, in terms of our planet, everywhere.24
The results of these experiments and Reichs clinical work indicated to him that it was the expansion and contraction of
this energy, its pulsation, that was behind sexual excitation, anxiety, and the emotions in general. He reasoned that if an
energy exists that is radiated by the sun and absorbed by humans, and if it is the expansion and contraction of this energy
that causes the subjective sensations of pleasure and anxiety, then the observed physical symptoms of sexual excitation,
orgasm, gratification, anxiety, and the various physiological effects of therapyinvoluntary trembling and spasms,
sensations of current, the orgasm reflex, and so oncould be explained as the effects of the pulsation of this energy. Armor,
the root of neurosis, could be explained as a formation of something that stops or slows pulsation of this energy.
The core, or the basic instincts, could be explained in terms of the pulsation of this energy, beginning with the contractile
nature of the vegetative ganglia. Core impulses and emotions, which appear correct to every living thing except armored
human beings, could be explained as the full pulsation of this energy within living beings as it is experienced subjectively.
Societys need to suppress such impulses and emotions could be attributed to peoples fear of energetic pulsation, a fear
brought about by child-rearing methods, educational methods, and the way people treat one another generally, a fear rooted
in and a cause of the armor.
Neurotic symptoms could be attributed to the conflict between the energys pulsation and the pressure of the armor. What
happens when armor dissolves and the orgasm reflex is established could be seen as the person becoming free to allow
complete pulsation of the energy, and the posture or meaning of the reflex itself, as the persons ability to surrender to the
flow of this energy in the body at acme.
Reich conducted experiments that indicated that the energy involved was not a form of nuclear radiation, X-ray radiation,
ionization in general, or electromagnetism but a form of energy as yet unknown to science. He named the energy orgone
energy, in reference to its history of discovery through the study of the orgasm and its biological effect of charging organic
substances.25 Via this hypothesis, Reich crystallized into a unified perspective what he had witnessed over the years in the
office and the laboratory.
Many questions, he says, remained. Could he find a way of controlling and isolating the energy for further experimental
study? If the energy was truly everywhere, this did not seem an easy task. Would he be able to learn how organic
substances and living organisms absorb it? Would he discover why emotionally stronger persons emit a stronger charge?
And what of the energys relationship to other forms of energy, such as nuclear radiation, magnetism, and
electromagnetism?
These and many other questions occupied Reich for the rest of his life.
What does all this have to do with Gurdjieff, sexuality, and the evolution of consciousness? Patience, dear, would be an
unidentified student of the evolution of consciousness. We are here following the slow, painstaking process of scientific
discovery. Gurdjieff gives us the concept of a universal cosmic energy, although getting it out of Gurdjieff is not easy, as
anyone who has tried to read Beelzebubs Tales knows. But still, he gives us the concept without providing us with the
details of how it was discovered, which presumably took hundreds and even thousands of years of experimentation by
numerous three-brained beings. Here we are following the logic of one contemporary scientist who discovered, without
Gurdjieffs background or knowledge, a universal cosmic energy. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us go on to review
Reichs experiments that helped him isolate and even control the energy so to better understand it and use it therapeutically.

Notes
1. TBE, pp. 19.
2. Chester M. Raphael, MD, On the Air Germ Dogma, OM, vol. 1, no. 2 (November 1955): pp. 159-61.
3. TBE, pp. 33-7.
4. Ibid., p. 38.
5. Ibid., p. 45-6.
6. Ibid., p. 49.
7. Ibid., p. 50.
8 . CB, pp. 14-15. See TBE, pp. 64-83, for descriptions of further experiments and 84-98 for descriptions of experiments
conducted by an independent researcher confirming Reichs findings.
9. TBE, pp. 100-4. See chapter 6 for descriptions of control experiments and instructions for replication.
10. SW, p. 195
11. Ibid., p. 196.
12. Ibid., p. 197.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., pp. 197-8.
16. Ibid., p. 198.
17. Ibid., p. 199.
18. Cf., G, a compilation of some of Reichs early papers.
19. SW, pp. 198ff.
20. Ibid., p. 199.
21. Ibid., pp. 200-1.
22. See OEB, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 117; vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 144-62.
23. SW, pp. 199-200.
24. Ibid., p. 202.
25. SW, p. 203.

CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
Initial Experiments with Sand Bion Cultures

Many people

who know little or nothing about Wilhelm Reich have heard of the Orgone Energy Accumulator,
colloquially, and with more than a touch of derision, known as the orgone box. Norman Mailer is known to have built one,
and William Burroughs mentions it in Naked Lunch. The Accumulator, however, should not be viewed as a plaything, a cureall, or the product of a deranged mind. It was developed as a scientific instrument for use in experiments with the newly
discovered orgone energy. Later it became useful as a therapeutic tool.
As we have seen, prior experimentation had left little doubt in Reichs mind that organic material absorbed the energy
and that metal reflected it. With this in mind, he constructed a box made of organic material on the outside and sheet metal
lining the inner walls. He planned to place the sand bion cultures within the enclosure and thought that the metal might
reflect the energy radiating from them and keep it within the confines of the box. Because he thought the metal might reflect
the energy toward the outside of the box as well, he placed organic material on the outside in the hope that it would absorb
some of the energy reflected by the metal. He hypothesized that the metal would reabsorb the energy from the material and
reflect some of it back into the box. In this way, he hoped that the box would accumulate the energy in a concentrated form
so that it could be isolated for experimental purposes. In order to observe what went on inside the box, he placed an
eyepiece and a device for viewing filmfor magnification purposesin a wall of the enclosure.
Reich then proceeded to place sand bion cultures within the box and began to observe through the eyepiece. Eventually,
he says he was able to observe phenomena very much like what he had seen in the dark basement: blue moving vapors,
yellow white streaks, and dots of light. He repeated the experiment many times and brought in independent observers who
confirmed his observations.1
This result was of great significance to Reich, for it proved the efficacy of the accumulation boxhe had not as yet begun
to call it the Orgone Energy Accumulatorin concentrating and isolating the radiation effects of the energy. Of even greater
significance, however, was what happened afterward. He removed the cultures from the box and glanced through the
eyepiece. Not expecting to see anything since the sand bions, the supposed source of the energy, were now absent, he was
shocked, he says, when he observed that the light phenomena were still present.
Thinking that this could only mean that the enclosure had somehow retained the radiation, he took it completely apart,
cleaned and aired it out, and then put it back together. He then looked into the box before placing any cultures within. The
same light phenomena, however, appeared again. Reich says that, at the time, he was at a loss as to why he could not
remove the radiation phenomena from the enclosure.

Orgone in the Atmosphere?

One evening, while observing the moonlit sky, he says that he noticed that the stars overhead flickered less intensely
than those near the eastern horizon. The thought occurred to him that if the flickering is due to diffusion of lightthe
accepted theory at the timeit should be uniform throughout the sky. That it didnt appear to be was an observation that, he
thought, contradicted the theory. Furthermore, if the theory was correct, the flickering should be stronger by the light of the
moon, but it actually seemed weaker by moonlight.2
To isolate the stellar flickering, Reich obtained a wooden tube and aimed it at individual stars. He says that he was
amazed to see a lively flickering in the sky between the stars similar to the flickering he had seen in the dark basement and
accumulation enclosure. He devised a way to magnify the light phenomena by inserting a magnifying glass into the wooden
tube, and, as before in the basement and accumulation box, when magnification was applied, the light streaks and pulsating
dots became more obvious, evidence that they were objectively present in the atmosphere and not in his eyes.
Reich says that he could only conclude that the same energy he had observed in the basement when the cultures had
been present was also in the atmosphere.3 Later Reich used the wooden tube to study rocks and earth and noticed the
same phenomena in the atmosphere around them; likewise when he observed cloudsonly, he says, it was more intense.
Reich points out, and we can easily verify this, that if we observe with open eyes in daylight, we can see a flickering
against a screen, a white door, and in the blue sky.4 When we observe at different times and under varying weather
conditions, we notice that the flickering is not always the same. At night, without diffused daylight, says Reich, the wavelike
flickering is even more distinct. Sometimes it is vivid, sometimes not vivid at alldifferences Reich eventually learned are
attributable to atmospheric conditions.
To make further observations, Reich devised what he called the first primitive orgonoscope, a metal tube that isolated a
circle that appeared brighter than the sky around it.5 As he viewed the sky through the instrument, he says that he could
observe the flickering quite clearly.
To test the objectivity of his observations, he inserted a plano-convex eyepiece with a magnification of approximately 5x
in the viewing end of the tube. The bright circular field, he says, became brighter and broader, and the dots and streaks of

light became larger and more distinct.6 He later pointed the tube toward the dark sky in front of the mirror of a microscope
with apochromatic lenses, using a l0x object lens and a 5x eyepiece. The microscope, says Reich, reflected the light
phenomena with total clarity.7 On foggy or hazy nights, however, he says, the phenomena were either weak or had
completely disappeared, evidence that fog or haze was not the cause of the flickering.
Repeated observation, he says, revealed that the flickering was most vivid on clear nights when the humidity was
relatively low, evidence that humidity apparently absorbed the radiation in the atmosphere. This seemed to account for the
weakness of the radiation of the sand bions on humid days.
Reich used the orgonoscope to observe pavement, loose earth, a lawn, walls and noticed the same phenomena, more
pronounced, he says, on soil than on asphalt and even more intense in shrubbery leaves and near flower blossoms than
stalks.

Use of the Faraday Cage

Reich experimented with a cage made of metal mesh (the so-called Faraday Cage) in a plain, light-free room, before
returning to use of the accumulation box. Use of the Faraday Cage revealed the same light phenomena. The dots, says
Reich, seemed to pulse.
To Reich, this pulsation was reminiscent of the pulsation he had observed in bions, protozoa, and the autonomic nervous
system of translucent worms. It also followed, he believed, the same pattern as the pulsation of physiological systems and
emotions in human beings, connecting atmospheric orgone energy functions with orgone energy functions in living
organisms. Free orgone energy, orgone energy in the atmosphere, and orgone energy contained within the membranes of
living organisms function, it seemed to him, according to the same general law of pulsation, the function of tension and
charge.
The light phenomena observed by use of the Faraday Cage, like the light phenomena he had observed previously, says
Reich, had a definite pattern as the light streaked or flew past the observer. Reich says that it followed a trajectory like that of
a spinning wave.8
This pattern later became familiar to him for he observed it numerous times. He named it a kreiselwelle or spinning
wave. Use of the cage, says Reich, also highlighted certain color effects. He noticed, for example, a blue green sheen
around his white coat, and the flickering light within the cage also could be seen as blue.

Further Experiments with the Accumulator

When he returned to use of the Orgone Energy Accumulator, he found it more useful than the Faraday Cage for it
functioned better in absorbing, containing, and isolating the energy.9 The inner walls, as mentioned, were lined with sheet
metal, and Reich found that they were cold to the touch. Yet, he says, when he put his hand inside approximately ten
centimeters from them, he felt a distinct warmth and a delicate prickling sensation, reminiscent of the sensation he had felt
when placing the test tube containing the first sand bion culture near the palm of his hand.
Furthermore, when he placed a thermometer at the top of the accumulator, it registered a temperature difference between
it and the outside of from.2 to.5 degrees, in spite of the fact that the walls were cold. Since the walls were cold, the warmth
experienced and measured by the thermometer could not, he thought, be attributed to heat radiated from the walls but only
to reflection of the orgone energy from them, a movement stopped by Reichs palm and experienced as warmth. This
hypothesis, Reich notes, was in accord with classical theories of heat as a product of moving energy.10
For control purposes, Reich built boxes of plain wood and tested for the effects obtained with the accumulator, including
the temperature difference. He found that the effects occurred only when the boxes were designed in the form of the
accumulator. He also put accumulators and control boxes underground and found that the accumulators, but not the control
boxes, showed significant temperature differences from outside.11
On summer days, in strong sun, says Reich, the temperature difference went as high as twenty degrees Celsius, while on
rainy days the differences were minimal.
The evidence indicated to Reich that the orgone energy entered the accumulator directly from the atmosphere. It was
absorbed by the outer walls and the inner metal walls, then reflected back within and without by the metal, reabsorbed by
the outer walls and then the metal walls, reflected back within by the metal, etc., a process that led to the accumulation of the
energy within the accumulator. Since the accumulator placed underground had also exhibited significant temperature
differences, Reich hypothesized that orgone energy exists in the soil, a conclusion in accord with the bion experiments in
which bionsnow postulated to be carriers of orgone energy or orgone energy vesicleshad emerged from the swelling
and disintegration of earth crystal and soil.12 (The experiments with accumulators underground were carried out to test a
hypothesis of Albert Einstein to whom Reich had shown his earlier results.13)

Is Orgone Energy a Form of Magnetism?

During the 1940s and early to middle 1950s, Reich conducted numerous experiments in which he furthered his
knowledge of orgone energy functions. He devised an experiment, for example, that showed that orgone energy is not
equivalent to magnetism, that it is not iron magnetic.14
According to Reich, when a magnetic needle was brought in close proximity to an accumulator, the magnetic north pole

of the needle always fixed itself toward the upper edges of the accumulator and the south pole toward the lower edges no
matter which way the accumulator was turned, no matter which edges of the accumulator functioned as the upper edges.
The magnet, Reich reasoned, was reacting to the field of the earth and not to the field of the accumulator, indicating that
orgone energy is not iron magnetic. It was Reichs belief that magnetism would someday be shown to be a particular form of
orgone energy.

Does Orgone Energy Consist of Negative Ions?

Reich also devised an experiment to see if orgone energy consists of negative ions.15 He placed a charged electroscope
inside an accumulator to see how quickly the electrical energy of the electroscope would discharge. Theoretically, according
to Reich, if orgone energy consists of negative ions, the electroscope would discharge its electrical energy more quickly
inside an accumulator than outside because ionized air, or air consisting of highly charged negative ions or electrons, acts
as a conductor between all the parts of the electroscope. This would mean that the charge of the metal walls of the
electroscope and the leaf of the electroscope would be more easily equalized than in nonionized air, which is a poor
conductor. Thus, theoretically, the electroscope would more quickly discharge in such an environment.
If the electroscope discharged less quickly inside the accumulator than outside, he believed, it would mean that the air
inside the accumulator was less ionized than the air outside. But since the accumulator accumulated orgone energy with all
the properties we have mentioned, this would mean that orgone energy is not a function of negative ions. The results of this
experiment were as follows: an electroscope when placed inside an Orgone Energy Accumulator discharged more slowly
inside than outside, indicating that orgone energy does not consist of negative ions.

Demonstration of an Orgone Energy Field

As more and more experimental evidence accumulated regarding Reichs theory of orgone energy, he came to think that
there might be an orgone energy field around living organisms and in the atmosphere. He devised a number of experiments
to test for other kinds of field phenomena. Firstly, he devised an experiment, which, he claims, demonstrated the existence of
a pulsating orgone energy field around an ordinary iron sphere. The pulsating field surrounding this sphere, the experiment
shows, caused a pendulum suspended near the sphere to oscillate.16
The pendulum was suspended from a higher point down to where it rested about.5 cm. from the center or equator of the
iron sphere, which was placed on a table. Without moving it by hand, the pendulum would begin to swing or oscillate on its
own when placed in this relationship with the sphere. The oscillation, in other words, occurred spontaneously. (Both the iron
sphere and the pendulum were protected against interference by wind currents by a cellulose covering.)
Reich observed that on dry sunny days, the swings were greater than on days when the humidity exceeded 70 percent.
On humid days, the pendulums swings would grow smaller and then stop altogether. When dry weather returned, Reich
found that the pendulum would again begin swinging spontaneously. This behavior on the part of the pendulum, says Reich,
occurred wherever the pendulum was placed.

Orgone Energy and Pulsation

Another significant occurrence was that the swings of the pendulum seemed to be influenced by the energy field of the
observer. When the energy field was strong and far-reaching, the pendulum increased in oscillation; when it was not, the
swings decreased. Reich concluded that orgone energy, in its mass-free state in the realm of nonliving matter and when it
functions as a field, pulsates.
That atmospheric orgone energy pulsates had already been observed in dark rooms, in the accumulator, and in the
atmosphere itself both with the naked eye and via the orgonoscope. Pulsation had also been observed within bions and
protozoa and as a function of sexuality and anxiety via the bioelectric experiments. It had first been formalized as the orgasm
formula from Reichs observations of the orgasm. The pendulum experiment added evidence to the hypothesis that orgone
energy, whether in its free state or enclosed within a membrane of a living organism, pulsates.

Water Absorbs Orgone Energy

Reaction of the pendulum to atmospheric conditions was also significant for it added evidence to Reichs hypothesis that
water absorbs orgone energy. The pendulums swing had slowed and then had stopped under humid conditions, indicating
that the pulsation of the orgone had slowed. The hypothesis that water and humidity (water in the air) absorbs the charge or
the energy accounts for this effect as well as for the decrease in orgone absorption of organic material in the sand bion
experiments; the decrease in observed pulsation of the atmospheric orgone in the dark rooms, in the accumulator, in the sky
at night and during the day; and the decrease in temperature difference between accumulators and the outside under humid
or rainy conditions.

The Existence of a Human Energy Field

The pendulum experiment also provided evidence for the existence of an orgone energy field surrounding human
beings, for the pendulum reacted to the human observer from a distance. Since the major result of the experiment was that
the pendulums motion was caused by a field phenomenon to begin with, its reaction to the human observer from a distance
indicated that the observer, like the iron sphere, had an orgone energy field. The fact that the pendulum reacted differently to

different individuals indicated that peoples orgone energy fields differed in terms of strength or reach, a conclusion in
accord with the results of the bioelectric experiments in which it had been found that emotionally weak individuals exhibit a
weak bioelectric response. Together, the results of these experiments pointed to a functional relationship between emotional
health and strength of orgone energy field.17

Is the Earth Surrounded by an Orgone Energy Field?

Reich also devised a series of experiments to see if the earth is surrounded by an orgone energy field.18 At various times,
he positioned a telescope capable of magnification of 185x on the shore of Lake Mooselookmeguntic near Oquossoc, Maine
(during summers of 1944 and 1945) in such a way that the opposite shore between four and eight miles away could be
clearly observed. He conducted observations at approximately half-hour intervals daily from early morning to late evening.
When he pointed the telescope south, he observed a wavy pulsating movement in the atmosphere above the lake, which
traveled, with few exceptions, he claims, from west to east.
This movement, says Reich, was consistent even when the wind moved in a different direction or when there was no wind
at all. The speed of the movement varied greatly at different times and was observed to be independent of air temperature.
The only time the movement changed direction was when a severe thunderstorm developed to the west. In such cases, the
movement either reversed or ceased altogether. The same pulsatory movement, says Reich, was observed with the naked
eye when there was no wind and the lake surface was completely smooth.
The wavy pulsational movement was observed to be independent of the movement of any haze that was sometimes
present and independent of the movement of the air or wind. In other words, he was not observing the movement of air
currents but of a background movement in which the air currents moved. The fact that this movement could be observed from
the earth indicated that it moved faster than the planet, since if it did not, it could not be observed in motion. If it moved slower
than the planet in rotation, it would have been observed moving east to west, i.e., in the opposite direction of planetary
rotation.
Reich says that he could only conclude from these observations that an orgone energy field surrounds the earth (which
he later called the earths orgone energy envelope) and rotates from west to east faster than the planet. The fact that the
field was observed to pulsate was further evidence of the basic pulsatory nature of the life force. These observations along
with others we have mentioned were later utilized by Reich in weather-control experiments.
Further evidence that the earth is surrounded by an orgone energy envelope was provided by an experiment in which
observations were made using a searchlight pointed into the atmosphere.19 The searchlight was aimed under varying
weather conditions, and observations were made as to its length, breadth, width, and shape.
The first observation Reich made was that when the light was aimed into the atmosphere, the color of the light was not
white but blue. On clear, cloudless nights, the streak of light was narrow and uniform; but on damp, cloudy nights, it was
uneven and broader, even in cloudless sectors of the sky. The light streak was observed to end more or less sharply in
space but was longer when held tangential or horizontal to the earths surface than when held vertical to the surface. The
light streak lengthened when moved from a vertical to a horizontal position and sometimes was observed to bend.
Reich wondered why the light streak was observed to end even on clear nights. If light traveled at the speed of light, as
was supposed, it would continue on forever in space. Yet it was observed not to so continue. He also wondered why it was
broader in certain areas on damp or humid nights and why it was shorter when aimed vertical to the surface of the earth.
The hypothesis of an orgone energy envelope surrounding the earth, evidence for which had been obtained in prior
experiments, along with a theory of light that differed radically from the accepted theory, seemed to account for the
observations. Reichs concept of energy fields entailed that they have a definite limit or boundary, which was not fixed but
changed as the field expanded or contracted. Given that the earths envelope was an orgone energy field phenomenon, it,
too, would be limited in terms of depth. This hypothesis alone would not account for the observations, however. To do so,
Reich theorized that light is a local luminescence of the orgone energy field: when one experiences the sensation we call
light, what we are seeing is concentrated orgone energy in an excited state, in a state of luminescence.
These hypotheses taken together, thought Reich, explained the observations. The light of the searchlight ended because
it had reached the limit or boundary of the earths orgone energy envelope, and the light consists, on this account, of the
concentrated energy of the envelope in a state of luminescence or at a certain level of excitation. Where the orgone is no
longer present in the concentrated state of a field, which Reich theorized to be the case beyond the boundary of the
envelope, there could be no more light (or luminescence of the concentrated orgone).
This hypothesis not only accounted for why the light streak was seen to end but also for the observation that the streak
was longer when held tangentially to the earths surface and shorter when held vertical to it. When held tangentially, the
angle increased the length of the luminescence effect for there was more concentrated orgone that became excited in that
way. That the light was observed to be blue and not white added evidence to Reichs theories (see below).

Orgone Energy and Light

Light was (and still is) assumed to be an electromagnetic phenomenon that travels through space, although the actual
nature of light remains a mystery to sciencewhether light prevails in the form of particles or photons (which yet have no
mass) or as waves (with no clear notion as to what is waving). Electromagnetic waves, on Reichs theory, travel through

space and cause light phenomena when in contact with concentrated orgone in a field. The field luminates due to the
influence or excitation of the electromagnetic energy, but the electromagnetic waves themselves do not luminate or become
light. The sun, he thought at first, transmits electromagnetic energy to earth, which luminates earths orgone energy field.
Later he questioned this concept based on experiments with luminescence of orgone in vacor tubes.20 The results of these
experiments, however, gave him, he says, no reason to doubt his theory of light. The corona of the sun, Reich theorized, is
probably due to local luminescence of its orgone energy envelope.
Reich pointed out that his concept of light explains the following observations: the fact that light occurs on the horizon
before sunrise or at dawn, that the observed light phenomena in an orgone energy room was strongest before and after
sunrise, and that the pulsatory movement above the lake was observed to become accelerated at sunrise or dawn. On
Reichs account, the earths field luminates before the sun actually reaches the horizon. We call this dawn. That the
luminescence is an excitation of the field was indicated not only in the perception of light but in the observation of the
accelerated pulsatory movement in the atmosphere above the lake (by use of a telescope) and in the acceleration of the
light phenomena in an orgone room, which, being completely dark to begin with, was blocked off from direct sunlight. Such
phenomena could not have been caused by direct sunlight but only by increased activity or excitation of atmospheric orgone
energy, which had excited the energy in the room.
The fact that the light streak was uniform on clear nights and uneven on cloudy nights confirmed previous observations
with the telescope, indicating that the orgone energy envelope of the earth prevails in different densities under unclear
atmospheric conditions but is evenly distributed in the sky under clear, nonhumid conditions. On humid nights, the uneven
distribution of the orgone would be due to the fact that the humidity absorbs orgone and forms different concentrations of it at
different points in the atmosphere. Where more humidity exists, a greater concentration of orgone would exist, and this
would cause the light streak to become broader since the light itself was conceived of as the energy luminating. When the
atmosphere was clear, no such variation in concentration of orgone would exist, and so the light streak would appear
uniform and narrow. That the light was observed to be brighter when aimed directly at clouds would be explained by the
hypothesis that clouds consist of a higher concentration of the energy than those parts of the atmosphere that, although
saturated with humidity, had not reached the level of humidity characteristic of cloud formation.
At the time Reich developed these hypotheses, he stressed their preliminary nature particularly with respect to his theory
of light and of the process of transmission of energy from the sun to the earth. His theory of the existence of a planetary
envelope and of the relationship of humidity or water in general to orgone energy, however, was confirmed, he believed, in
his later weather-control experiments,21 and more recently others have reported observations of orgone energy
luminescence in accord with Reichs.22

The Energy Field of Living Organisms in General

Reich carried out another experiment to test the hypothesis that living organisms are surrounded by an orgone energy
field. In this experiment, he devised what he called an Orgone Energy Field Meter, constructed in the following way: A
current of electricity produced by an induction apparatus or coil was connected with wires to two metal plates separated
sufficiently so that a human hand could be placed between them without physically touching them. The wires were
connected to a 40-watt bulb that the current caused to glow.23 The plates were set up in this way so that the experimenter
could place a hand between the metal plates and see if the mere presence of the hand would influence the glowing of the
bulb and if the field produced by the current flowing through the plates would influence a florescent tube held in the hand.
Theoretically, if the 40-watt bulb was influenced by the presence of the hand, it would mean that an energy field was emitted
by the hand. If the florescent tube luminated when held by the hand within the field of the apparatus, it would mean that the
field of the hand had interacted with that of the apparatus to produce the luminescence of the tube. The effects, Reich
hypothesized, would be the result of field phenomena since the hand would remain out of physical contact with the plates.
First Reich held the florescent tube in his hand and placed the hand holding the tube between the plates of the
apparatus. (The tube was not connected to the apparatus.) When the tube was moved toward the upper plate, reports Reich,
the tube luminated. When the tube was left on the upper plate, in physical contact with it, and the hand removed, the
luminescence ceased, evidence that it was due solely to the presence of the hand within the field of the meter. When the
hand was brought back close to the tube and within the field of the meter, the tube luminated again. When the hand touched
the glass of the tube, the luminescence became more intense. Reich says that the luminescence effect was most intense
when the tube, held in the hand, was placed between the two metal plates. As the tube was taken away from the meter, the
luminescence faded.
Reich then lowered his hand toward the upper plate. The 40-watt bulb attached to the meter by wires luminated more
intensely. (He says that did not touch the metal of the plate but organic material that acted as an insulator and did not
interfere with the field phenomenon created by the current moving through the plates.) When Reich brought more of his body
close to the upper plate, the bulb luminated even more strongly, indicating that not only did his hand emit an orgone field,
but it surrounded his entire body. Reich says he was also able to adjust the primary current in such a way that pulsations of
heartbeat could be observed in the form of slight fluctuations in the intensity of luminescence of the bulb.
The results of these experiments clearly indicated to Reich the presence of an orgone energy field around his body. In
order to see if such a field was more generally prevalent around living things, he brought freshly cut branches within the field
of the meter and observed that the luminescence of the bulb increased. The same effect was obtained with a freshly killed
and a living fish. As the fish died, the luminescence effect decreased and eventually ceased altogether. The same thing

happened with the freshly cut branch.

Reich also brought an electroscope within the energy field of the meter (on the upper plate) and moved his hands toward
the plate of the electroscope without actually touching it. The electroscope, Reich reports, gave a positive reaction. When he
placed his hand near the electroscopes plate when it was not within the energy field of the meter, however, the electroscope
showed no reaction, indicating that the previous reaction was due to the interaction of the energy field of the meter and the
hand.
Finally, Reich placed an old piece of wood in the same position and for a length of time sufficient to guarantee that his
own energy field would not influence the meter, and he found that the old wood did not affect the luminescence of the bulb.
An iron plate held above the upper plate did cause the bulb to luminate.
The results of these experiments provided evidence for the existence of an orgone energy field surrounding living
organisms. The secondary coil of the induction apparatus had apparently developed an orgone energy field within and
surrounding the field meter, and this field apparently had made contact with the field of the experimenter, that of the freshly
cut branch, and of the fish. This contact of orgone energy fields, Reich concluded, caused the various luminescence effects
observed. The fact that the luminescence effect diminished and then ceased altogether when the branch and fish died
indicates that when the source of the energy dies or when the ability to absorb it no longer exists, the energy field diminishes
and then disappears.

Photographic Plate Experiments

That orgone energy has light effects had already been determined, but Reich conducted a controlled experiment to
further substantiate this conclusion.24 He placed two-year-old earth bions, which were moistened and formed into pellets one
centimeter in diameter, in a petri dish. In complete darkness, he then placed an orthochromatic photographic plate face
downward on the dish over the pellet without making physical contact with the pellet and left it in position for four days. The
plate was removed and then exposed to the light of an electric bulb for 1/10 of a second to make visible any possible
shadowing effects from the pellet.
The results were as follows: A large shadow could be observed in the center of the photographic plate, which
corresponded to the position of the pellet. The shadow contained individual black-and-white points, and examination with a
magnifying glass, says Reich, showed that the black points existed in the center of a white field in white points.25
Formation of the shadow indicated to Reich that the light from the bulb had little influence on the photographic plate after
the plate had been exposed to orgone energy radiation from the bion pellet. More generally, it indicated that orgone energy
opposes the influence of light on photographic plates. That its own luminescence had previously exposed the plates
confirmed the hypothesis that orgone energy is a source of light. That it caused a shadow on the plate showed that orgone
energy can be photographed.

Use of X-Ray Photography

A second series of experiments along similar lines was conducted in which Reich extended his research into X-ray
photography of orgone energy and also showed that orgone exists in various densities, a property previously observed via
the orgonoscope and in the searchlight experiments.26 A subjects palms, facing each other and at rest, were placed
between an X-ray film and an X-ray tube. An X-ray photograph was then taken. No shadowing or light effects appeared on
the portion of the film that had been exposed to the area between the palms.
Next, using the same experimental setup, the subject was asked to move the two palms slowly back and forth with
pulling movements toward and away from one another, the theory being that the movements would excite the orgone
energy field between the palms. The subject was asked to wait until sensations were felt (Reich believed such sensations
would be indicative of field excitation). When the sensation described as an elastic cushion was reported, and an attraction
between the palms was reportedly experienced by the subject, the subject said, Now, and the X-ray photograph was taken
(at an exposure time of 0.1 to 0.2 seconds).
When the photograph was taken at the moment of strongest subjective sensation, it showed a strong shadowing between
the palms but not at their backs. Behind the palms, the photograph was completely blackened. The strongest shadows
occurred in the middle between the palms at the point where the sensation of an elastic cushion was experienced. The
shadow between the palms was uneven and had a wavelike character. Reich says that the same photographic result was
obtained by the orgone energy field excited between body hair and a vacuum tube, the field between the operator and a
Geiger-Mller counter tube, and an orgone energy field developed in an alcohol flame.
The results of these experiments confirmed the luminescence property of orgone energy and showed that such effects
and the existence of orgone energy per se could be verified photographically.27 The results added to the growing evidence
that an orgone energy field exists around living organisms and that orgone energy pulsates in its mass-free state (when it
functions as a field) and takes the form of a wave.
That an excited field blocked penetration by X-rays and caused shadowing on the film showed that orgone energy, like
matter, hinders the penetration of X-rays, thus electromagnetic waves, and that the more concentrated orgone energy is, the
greater its resistance to the passage of such waves. The hypothesis that light is local luminescence of orgone concentrated
at a certain density was bolstered by these results in that it showed that only when orgone is at a certain density, which was

density caused by its becoming excited, did it affect the passage of the X-rays. By implication, this means that the passage of
electromagnetic waves could be hindered by orgone concentrated at a certain density. Reichs concept of a planetary
orgone energy envelope is that it consists of orgone energy that is more highly concentrated than the orgone outside of its
boundary, in space, and that luminescence occurs due to the stimulating effect of electromagnetic waves (or other stimuli) on
this more highly concentrated orgone (a hypothesis bolstered by the searchlight experiments).
That the point of greatest shadowing on the film occurred between the palms added evidence to the hypothesis that
orgone energy fields excite one another, a hypothesis previously implied by the fact that the point of greatest luminescence
of the florescent tube had been between the metal plates of the orgone energy field meter. The fact that the shadowing
occurred when the subject reported sensations of elasticity and attraction between the palms and that no shadowing
occurred when no such sensations were reported was further evidence for the theory that orgone energy becomes more
concentrated when excited and that subjective sensations of orgone energy functions can be verified objectively, in this case
via X-ray photography (in the case of the bioelectric experiments, via measurement of bioelectric skin potential). The results
of these experiments added to the store of objective confirmation of the existence of orgone energy that Reich was
accumulating.

Weather-Control Experiments
Reich eventually applied the principles of orgone energy functioning or orgonotic potential in weather-control
experiments and to affect the accumulation of noxious clouds in the atmosphere. I will mention certain aspects of the
experiments and refer the reader to the literature.
Reichs observations of the atmosphere indicated the existence of a planetary orgone energy field or envelope that
moved in characteristic ways under various atmospheric conditions (as mentioned, the west-to-east movement reversed or
ceased when a storm was forming to the west of the observer, for example). Reich developed techniques and devices to
influence the movement of this envelope in such a way that clouds could be formed and rain produced when none had been
predicted.28 The results of these weather-control experiments were successful to the extent that they provided evidence
confirming Reichs theories.
Via these techniques, he was also able to disperse clouds, something that became necessary when noxious clouds that
Reich eventually identified as DOR-clouds, clouds consisting of orgone energy in its dead or deadly form, were observed
over Orgonon.29 One of the most distressing properties of these clouds according to Reich (and of DOR in the atmosphere in
general) is that they dehydrate the land as well as living organisms. An excessive amount of this energy in the atmosphere
leads to drought conditions and eventual desertification of the land.
Later, the knowledge Reich gained via these experiments was utilized in confrontation with unidentified flying objects that
had appeared over Orgonon and in Tucson, Arizona, where Reich conducted weather-control operations as or more
successful than those he had conducted in the East.30 Weather-control experiments based on Reichs discoveries have
been conducted in more recent times and are in progress to this day.31

The Oranur Experiments

Another series of experiments that can only be mentioned here are the experiments under the heading of the Oranur
Experiments. These experiments concerned the relationship between nuclear radiation and orgone energy and were begun
in the hope of discovering if orgone energy can act as an antidote to nuclear radiation (this was during a period when a
great deal of testing of nuclear weapons was being carried out, the late 1940s and early 1950s). Reich found that nuclear
radiation caused severe irritation of the orgone energy within living organisms and in the atmosphere. Experiments were
conducted with a small amount of radioactive material that, in itself, had little irritating effects. When placed in an Orgone
Energy Accumulator or a series of accumulators, however, the effects became devastating. Reich concluded that nuclear
radiation irritates orgone energy and that irritated orgone energy, named oranur, causes living organisms to become
deathly ill. These experiments relate to the concept of DOR in that it was found that after formation of oranur, DOR would
form, leading to further life-negative effects mentioned above.

Motor Properties
One final area of experimentation should be mentioned. Reich reports in The Cancer Biopathy that by using several
accumulators or a specially built orgone energy room, a high concentration of atmospheric orgone energy was obtained.
This was demonstrated, says Reich, by use of Geiger-Mller counters.32 The counters were kept in this highly charged
orgone atmosphere for several weeks, and the counter tubes apparently absorbed the orgone from the atmosphere of the
accumulator, for when removed, the counters produced impulses apart from any other source of energy, electric or
otherwise. The counters, in other words, worked without being plugged in to another source of power. This indicated that
orgone energy can develop the capacity to drive a motor, which, Reich says, would account for the capacity of living
organisms to move.
Later Reich reports on other experiments in which he was able to utilize orgone energy to drive a motor. The report,
however, was left purposely incomplete, and one imagines that a full report is contained in Reichs archives, which, on
Reichs instructions, were only recently opened to qualified scientists.33

Notes
1. SW, p. 204.
2. Ibid., p. 206.
3. Ibid., p. 207.
4.

See Jim Swan, PhD, Visual Perception of Life Energy Fields: A Research Hypothesis, International Journal of Life
Energy, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1980): pp. 49-58. Also OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 74-83; vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 143-59; vol. 4,
no. 4, pp. 215-16.

5. SW, p. 203.
6. Ibid., 213.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., pp. 218-19.
9. CB, p. 109.
10. Ibid., pp. 112-13.
11. Ibid., pp. 119-20.
12. OEB, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 53-8. See also Charles Konia, MD, An Investigation of the Thermal Properties of the ORAC, JO,
vol. 8, no. 1 (May 1974), and part 2 of the same article, same journal, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 244-52.
13.

See History of the Discovery of the Life Energy; The Einstein Affair, OIP, 1953, Boadella, op. cit., pp. 185-88, 267-9,
Sharaf, op. cit., 280ff, and RSF, pp. 39, 183.

14. CB, pp. 126-7.

15. CB, pp. 126-7.
16. Ibid., pp. 143-5.
17.

See Swan, op. cit.; and Courtney F. Baker, The Pendulum Experiment, The Journal of Orgonomy, vol. 11, no. 2
(November 1977): pp. 176-87.

18. CB, pp. 145-6.

19. OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3-6. See also Orgonomic Functionalism, vol. 51 (Summer 1994): pp. 20-44.
20.
21.

OEB, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 97-9.

See Wilhelm Reich, Contact with Space (New York: Core Pilot Press, 1957), esp. pp. 111ff, 143ff, 212ff, and passim;
The Storm of November 25th and 26th, 1950, OEB, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1951): pp. 72-5; DOR Removal and Cloud
Busting, OEB, vol. 4, no. 4 (October 1952): pp. 171-82; Chester M. Raphael, MD, DOR Sickness: A Review of Reichs
Findings, OM, vol. 1, no. 2, (June 1955): pp. 18-40; OROP DESERT, CORE, vol. 4, nos. 1-4 (July 1954): pp. 1-139;
CORE, vol. 7, nos. 1-4 (March and December 1955); see also CORE Progress Reports, in The Journal of Orgonomy,
vols. 5-12 and 15 for recent weather-control experiments; also James DeMeo, Preliminary Analysis of Changes in
Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster, International Journal of Life
Energy, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1980): pp. 35-48 (an MA thesis also available from University Microfilms, Ann
Arbor, Michigan); and Jerome Eden, UFOs, DOR, and Drought in the Northwest, The Journal of Orgonomy, vol. 7, no.
2 (November 1973): pp. 249-53.

22. See Werner Grossman, Observations of Orgone Energy Lumination, OEB, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1952): pp. 59-60.
23. CB, pp. 147-50.
24. OEB, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 49-50.
25. See photograph, ibid., p. 50.
26. OEB, vol. 1, no. 2, 50-1.
27. The experiments predate photographs reportedly taken by the Russian Kirlian.
28. SW, pp. 435-47; see also Reich, DOR Removal and Cloud Busting, op. cit., and Contact with Space, op. cit.
29. SW, pp. 435ff. The concept of DOR was eventually expanded by Reich when he realized that DOR exists within human
beings as immobile orgone energy contained or bound by the armor. See Reich, Reemergence of Freuds Death
Instinct as DOR, OM, vol. 2, no. 1 (April 1956): pp. 2-11; and SW, pp. 455ff.
30. See Contact with Space, op. cit.
31.

Reich, Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes, OEB, vol. 2, no. 4 (October 1950): pp. 184-93, a
report of experiments confirming the orgone absorption property of water. See also Reich, Reemergence of Freuds
Death Instinct as DOR, op. cit., and the above-mentioned articles on weather-control and DOR-busting experiments.

See also CORE Progress Reports, op. cit.

32. OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 7-11.
33.

The Archives were opened in 2007. Contact Orgonon, the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangely, Maine, for further
details.

PART IV
The Fundamental Laws of World Creation and
World Maintenance
What we are doing here is no more than flying high above a vast territory, the exploration of which will require painstaking,
detailed efforts. We are free later to abandon parts of it or the whole aspect, should it resist strictest observational and
experimental as well as orgonometric scrutiny.
Wilhelm Reich, Cosmic Superimposition
Neither nonbeing nor being was as yet,
Neither was airy space nor heavens beyond;
What was enveloped? And where? Sheltered by whom?
And was there water? Bottomless, unfathomed?
Neither was there death nor immortality,
Nor was there any sign then of night or day;
Totally windless, by itself, the One breathed . . .
Rig-Veda

CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reichs Theory
of Cosmic Superimposition
Reichs Experiments, Regarding Creation: Experiment XX

eich conducted a series of experiments on the cellular level, indicating that living organisms develop not merely from
nonliving, organic matterwhich is what the bion experiments had shownbut from orgone energy in its mass-free,
preatomic state. In carrying out these experiments, known as Experiment XX, Reich utilized a technique he developed for
measuring the luminescence effect of liquids that contained orgone energy. He had hypothesized that liquids apparently
stronger in orgonotic charge would luminate more strongly, given the luminescent property of orgone energy, but he needed
a way to objectively measure such differences.
He acquired a fluorophotometer that gave a quantitative measurement of the fluorescence of liquids, and he
hypothesized that the intensity of fluorescence of fluids would reflect the extent of orgonotic luminescence of these fluids. In
his laboratory were samples of bion cultures that, based on observation, he hypothesized contained orgone energy. He
proceeded to measure the fluorophotometric intensity of some of these samplesfluids that had contained earth bions for
months, and some, yearsas well as ordinary water and discovered that the bion liquids showed a much higher
fluorophotometric value than the ordinary water. This initial finding indicated that fluids containing a higher concentration of
orgone energy than other fluids luminate more strongly. This finding also showed that orgonotic luminescence could be
measured with the fluorophotometer and meant that he would now be able to quantify this phenomenon.1
Reich says that he proceeded to develop an efficient procedure for forming water with a high orgonotic charge. He added
distilled water to ordinary garden soil that had been sieved free of stones and lumps of clay and that on microscopic
examination had revealed no motility. The soil-water preparation was then boiled for an hour or autoclaved for half an hour
at 120C and 15 lbs. pressure (a dry sterilization technique). The water was then filtered from the soil to the point where it
was crystal clear.
Immediately after boiling and filtering, the water, now yellow in color, was measured fluorophotometrically. Reich found
that its value, on the average, was forty-five times stronger than ordinary water (and that it had been prior to boiling),
indicating that the boiling had produced orgone energy vesicles from the combination of the water and soil, a result Reich
had expected based on numerous experiments of the identical type he had carried out previously. The difference this time
was that he was able to quantify the orgone energy via the fluorophotometer.
The numerical value, in this case 45, was determined by comparing the bion water with distilled water. Distilled water was
measured, and the reaction it gave on the fluorophotometer, its level of fluorescence, was assigned the value 1 OP
(orgonotic potency). Reich then measured other fluids and scaled their reactions according to this base. Rainwater was
tested, for example, in which an OP value of 3 was obtained, meaning that rainwater was three times stronger in level of
fluorescence than distilled water. Other values obtained were OP-4 for tap water, OP-8 for seawater, OP-73 for honey, OP100+ for unpasteurized milk, OP-55 for pasteurized milk, and so on.2
In utilizing the fluorophotometer, Reich once again had recourse to the use of electrical measurement to test for orgone
energy functions. In the bioelectrical experiments, orgonotic charge and discharge (orgonotic potential) had been measured
in terms of millivolts (although at the time the experiments had been conducted, he had not known of the existence of orgone
energy but had only suspected that some form of bioelectricity was at work within the organism). In the fluorophotometric
measurements, the photoelectric cell of the meter reacted to the luminescence of liquids and transformed it into electrical
energy, which moved the needle of the instrument. In both cases, Reich believed that the devices could not accurately reflect
the actual orgone energy values since the electrical measurements could record only a small fraction of their real orgonotic
value.3 Still, he had found a way to measure the luminescent effect of orgone energy relatively and thus had developed an
objective test for orgone energy light effects.
Like the discovery of orgone energy from the sand bion cultures, the experiment Reich labeled Experiment XX was
triggered by an accident. A tube of particle-free bion waterwater that had been sieved and autoclaved and upon
microscopic examination had indicated the existence of no organisms of any kind, including bionswas accidentally left
outside where it froze. Reich examined the water and found frozen, condensed flakes in the water, which, prior to freezing,
had been completely clear. On microscopic examination, says Reich, the flakes were observed to be composed of intensely
radiating particles of bionous matter and pulsating bions. Reich had every reason to believe that the bions had developed
out of the orgone energy and water solely because of the freezing process, since the water, prior to freezing, had apparently
contained no matter of any kind and no organisms. He had been culturing bions for years, but always from the disintegration
of matter, and had not even considered the possibility that bionswhich Reich believed are transitional forms between
nonliving matter and living organisms (seen in numerous experiments in which fully alive protozoa had been observed to
develop from the merger of bions)would form if no matter was present.

This totally unexpected finding caused Reich to devise a series of experiments to determine what had occurred.4 He
utilized the method he had developed to obtain highly charged bion water and measured it fluorophotometrically. As
mentioned, the water measured, on the average, at an OP rating of 45. He then autoclaved the water for thirty minutes to
make sure that no living cells, particles, or bions remained alive in the liquid. The particle-free water was then sealed tight
and placed into the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. For control purposes, Reich placed vials of the water in an
Accumulator, left some standing in the laboratory, and stored vials of ordinary water with each group.5
After two to eight days, says Reich, the frozen, particle-free bion water was removed. Reich observed that the yellow color
had concentrated in the center of the ice in an opaque brown yellow spot. When the ice liquified, whitish and brownish flakes
were observed in the previously clear liquid. Reich reports that the controls, the bion water left in the laboratory and that was
put in the Accumulator, developed flakes but over three to eight weeks, and the plain water put in the Accumulator did also,
but only after several months. These flakes, says Reich, were less dense and less perfectly formed than those formed from
bion water. The plain water left in the laboratory and put in the freezer developed no flakes.
Reich examined the flakes microscopically and found vesicles present. The vesicles, he says, were smooth, plasmatic,
and well defined. Also found were heaps of bions with an intense blue glimmer and a sharp margin, indicating that they
contained a quantum of orgone energy. After two to three weeks, the flakes were observed to grow and divide. To further
explore their nature, Reich prepared a culture of them under sterile conditions by using sterile bion water. Over the course of
several months, he says that blue bions could be observed emerging from some of the flakes, which measured two to three
microns in diameter and were observed to gradually stretch out to a bean shape. Sometimes they prematurely disintegrated
and resulted in what he at the time called T-bacilli, but when they didnt, they evolved into contractile (pulsating) protozoa,
which Reich says moved in a rapid, jerky manner. He called these forms orgonomia. Premature disintegration, says Reich,
could be stopped and the T-bacilli killed by repeated freezing.6
Reich had taken liquid that he had determined to be high in orgone energy content via an objective method of
measurement of fluorescence level and that had had no particles and had found that merely by freezing it, living organisms
had emerged. This meant that living organisms can originate from mass-free orgone energy. Biology prior to Reich (and still
to this day) assumed that living organisms can come only from other living organisms. The original bion experiments
showed that this is not the case, that living organisms evolve from the swelling and disintegration of organic, nonliving
matter. Experiment XX showed that biogenesis, or the creation of biologically alive organisms, results from the condensation
(freezing) of mass-free orgone energy, indicating that orgone energy is the life energy per se.
Reichs theory explains the results of Experiment XX as follows: Soil apparently contains orgone energy, which is
released from it when it is boiled in water. Water, as had been determined previously, attracts orgone energy (and vice
versa). When boiled, the orgone was released from the soil as bions and in the mass-free state (in the same state it is in the
atmosphere except that in the bion water it is mixed with water). When the water was frozen, the orgone in the water
contracted along with the water. From the contraction of orgone and water, the flakes formed via coalescence or
condensation.
Reich was not merely speculating regarding the pulsatory properties of orgone energy when he hypothesized that the
orgone in the water had contracted, for he had observed this property of orgone energy in other contexts, and he had
hypothesized that it contracts in human beings and forms character armor. In the latter case, the orgone contracts due to
external hostility, which produces the contractive emotion we call fear or anxiety, while in the former case contraction
occurred due to freezing. The bions formed, Reich hypothesized, because the freezing or condensation process initiated
formation of a membrane around a quantum of orgone energy. Protozoa evolved from the bions via lumination and attraction
of bions and their consequent merger or superimposition.
The control experiments also proved interesting. That plain water placed in an Accumulator developed flakes after a
longer period of time once again exhibited waters attraction for orgone energy, and that the plain water left in the laboratory
did not develop flakes added evidence to the theory of the capacity of the Accumulator to concentrate orgone energy. That
bion water placed in the laboratory developed flakes added evidence that the water did have a higher orgone energy
content than the plain water that did not develop flakes even when frozen. Reichs theory of the relationship between water
and orgone energy implies that even plain water has an orgone energy content, and this was verified fluorophotometrically,
but its content is apparently not high enough to cause flakes to develop if not placed in an atmosphere of highly
concentrated orgone energy (like that in an Accumulator). That bion water left in the laboratory and in an Accumulator and
plain water left in an Accumulator developed flakes over a longer period of time than the bion water that had been frozen
indicates that the condensation process occurs even without the extreme environmental factor of freezing. That the flakes
were much less lively and poorly formed, however, indicates that the freezing process facilitates the condensation process.
The results of Experiment XX indicate that Reich had discovered what many ancient scientists and philosophers, esoteric
thinkers and vitalists have assumed or postulated, and what Gurdjieff apparently teachesthat there is a mass-free,
ubiquitous energy that functions as the ground of life. If Reichs experiments are valid, Anaximenes the Miletian, who
postulated that the basic stuff is air and that things form from its condensation (fire, from its rarefaction), it turns out, had
been very close to the truth (his teacher and predecessor, Thales, had said the same about his candidate for the prime
source substance, water). And Chuang Tzu, the Chinese philosopher who lived around 350 BCE, had been profoundly

correct in his assumption that water plus chi (his name for the life force) yields organisms.7

The Orgonome
The results of Experiment XX, when viewed in conjunction with Reichs other research, opened the door to an
understanding of creation that took Reich far beyond anything he could ever had imagined beforehand. Observations made
during this and other experiments shed light on some of the most perplexing questions confronting sciencenamely, why
living organisms have their shape or form, why they develop organs and limbs, why human beings seek knowledge, or,
generally speaking, why living organisms evolve. The first question concerns the basis of organic form, something scientists,
philosophers, and even mathematicians have wondered about for centuries.8
The organisms that developed from the condensation of mass-free orgone energy in numerous experiments conducted
over a period of many years, says Reich, revealed characteristic shapes that, since the results were so consistent, could not
be arbitrary. Generally speaking, the form they took was that of the bean or egg.
Reich called this form the orgonome, the shape of numerous organic forms including plant seeds, plant bulbs, animal
sperm cells, animal eggs (particularly birds eggs), unicellular organisms, whole animal and plant bodies, animal embryos,
all organs of the human body, trees, leaves, blossoms, pollen and pistils of plants, arms, legs, fins, wings, the heads of
snakes, lizards, foxes, fish, claws and beaks of birds, air bladders of fish, horns of cattle, rams and stags, shells of snails and
muscles, among others.9 (A recent study shows that this form is also characteristic of the human skull, ribcage, pelvis, ear,
and, says the writer, most perfectly in the human rib, which was found to be an almost-perfect segment of a logarhythmic
spiral,10 a finding that readers of Rodney Collinss Theory of Eternal Life should find interesting since he hypothesized that
formation of higher-being bodies occurs logarhythmically.) The orgonome form, of course, is an abstraction, and actual forms
vary in length, width, thickness, and, says Reich, may appear as subdivisions of the same form as in worms.
Since the organisms formed in Experiment XX all had the orgonome shape, and since they formed via development of a
membrane around a quantum of orgone energy and water because of condensation of the mass-free orgone, Reich
reasoned that the orgonome shape was based on the way orgone energy moves when in its mass-free state. Reich could
think in this way because he had already observed mass-free orgone energy in motion in darkrooms, Accumulators, and
Accumulator rooms. Along with pulsation movements, he had observed the orgone moving in spinning waves.11
Movement in the form of a single spinning wave, however, could not account for the orgonome shape. The orgonome is
the shape of organisms, and organisms form from the merger of entities, as in the case of the sperm and the egg. Merger of
two organisms, Reich reasoned (from experience and experimentation), involves the orgastic convulsion, a function natural
to orgone energy beings of all types (including cells during mitosis).12 Two orgone energy beings come in contact with one
another and if mutually excited via lumination and attraction are driven to superimpose. Reich notes that it is important to
remember, when considering how the form of the orgastic convulsion relates to the orgonome shape, that in the realm of the
unarmored, or nature generally, mutual excitation and superimposition occurs spontaneously and involuntarily. That it
doesnt in armored humans, and that most humans are armored, is the most significant indication of humanitys lack of
contact with nature or essence.
Reich says that at the time he wrote Cosmic Superimposition, reasoned evidence existed to the effect that two spinning
waves of excited, mass-free orgone energy can become (1) attracted to one another, (2) approach one another, until they (3)
superimpose:13 It is what occurs at the point of merger, says Reich, that is the determining factor of the orgonome shape. At
this point, the crucial form to consider, he says, is not of one individual wave, because at superimposition, two such waves
meet and merge, which when placed together form an ellipse.14
Reich reasoned that if at the point of superimposition an orgastic convulsion occurs, the form of the movement of the
mass-free orgone energy would be a mass-free version of the orgasm reflex where the mouth and genital ends strive to
come together. In humans, and metazoans generally, although the two ends strive to come together, complete bending is
obviated by the skeletal structure, a consideration obviously not relevant with respect to mass-free spinning waves.15
Based on his observations and experiments, Reich came to the hypothesis that mass-free orgone energy, when in the
process of superimposition, moves in the form of an orgastic convulsion. Since matter that forms from this movement is
condensed orgone energy, Reich reasoned that it would take the shape of this movement, but in condensed form. The
shape typical of organic organisms, then, is explained by Reich as a product of the superimposition in the form of an orgastic
convulsion of two waves of mass-free orgone energy. The orgonome thus represents a frozen orgasm reflex.16

Development of the Colpidia Due to the Tendency of the

Orgone Energy Within the Membrane to Expand
The primitive transitional organisms formed in Experiment XX, the bions, consisted of a membrane-enclosing liquid and a
quantum of orgone energy. The bions were formations from moving, pulsating mass-free orgone energy, and once formed,
the orgone energy within the membrane would continue to pulsate and move. This conclusion was not based on reasoning
alone, for bions were observed to pulsate and their contents were observed to move. During Experiment XX, Reich also
witnessed the movement of mass-free orgone energy within more advanced microorganisms, various kinds of protozoa. The

orgone within these organisms, Reich noted, tended toward expansion when not forced to contract due to external factors
such as extreme cold. This tendency toward expansion, says Reich, made it appear as if the orgone within the membrane
was trying to escape the confines of the membrane.17 The movement, being expansive, appeared to cause the membrane to
stretch and elongate, movements Reich had observed in his earlier bion experiments.
Reich says that sometimes the inner movement of the orgone could be seen to occur just prior to the movement of the
organism as a whole, indicating that movement of whole organisms is due to movement of the mass-free energy within.
Other times, he says, the inner movement of the orgone caused the membrane to grow or expand. Reich observed this
growth in the development of a single-celled organism known as colpidia from bions. Reich says that development of this
organism took the following sequence: At first a membrane formed around a cluster of bions, which eventually became a
germinal vesicle with a blue glimmer. At some point, the interior of the vesicle could be observed to begin to move, to roll
with the membrane in one direction near the periphery. Later, says Reich, the movement changed direction, and two distinct
movements could be seen as the vesicle grew taut and larger, an indication that the membrane was stretching. Reich claims
that all his observations indicated that the stretching of the membrane was caused by the expansive movement of the
orgone energy within.
Gradually, says Reich, the circular form of the inner movement took the form of the orgonome. Two currents developed,
which converged and continued backward along the center of the vesicle. Eventually, says Reich, the vesicle burst into four
colpidia. In each of them, the forward or head end was located at the place where the inner current flow had originally been
directed. The colpidia then swam off in the very same direction after being formed. Then the internal current could be
observed to stop, and the organism moved forward in a path identical to the curve of the back end.18

Orgone Energy Movement Within Human Beings

The way the inner contents of protozoa in general and the forming colpidia in particular moved and the effect of this
movement on formation of the organism in terms of where the forward end developedindicated by the direction in which it
movedled Reich to a theory that took him deeper into an understanding of the way orgone energy moves within living
beings generally and humans in particular. Earlier he had hypothesized that at acme, the orgone energy within expands
from the genitals, over the back, toward the head, and then around the head and along the front of the body, a movement of
energy that follows the shape of the membrane (the skin). The same movement, Reich points out, can be seen in frozen form
in the shell.19
Reich hypothesized that orgone energy within humans naturally moves in the same way even when not expanding at
acme, even when not luminated or excited sexually, and, in this respect, resembles the way energy moves within protozoa
and the forming colpidia. At acme the movement is more intense because the energy is more excited. Reich points out that
we experience this movement of energy in shudders of fear as the energy passes over our backs just as the fur of frightened
animals stands on end and leans forward. Once the energy reaches the head end, says Reich, it turns and moves along the
front of the body and returns toward the tail end. In complex organisms, the movement turns at the neck and expands at
various points along the front of the body and accounts for certain types of growth.20
When the organism becomes sexually excited, says Reich, the movement of the mass-free orgone energy within the body
increases with the pulsation of the entire organism, for sexual excitation, for Reich, is nothing else but the mass-free energy
luminating, or becoming more excited. The highly excited energy moves from the tail end, over the back to the head, around
the front of the body, and returns toward the genitals. When it reaches the genitals, he says, they erect or become turgid, due
to the fact that the closed orgonome, the membrane or body, is particularly narrow at this point. The genitals erect in the
same direction as the movement of the energy, toward the head end. The highly excited energy, says Reich, expands and,
like that of the colpidia, seeks to escape the confines of the membrane. Erection and turgidity of the genitals, therefore,
represent the movement of the energytoward the world or out of the body.
In seeking to escape the confines of the membrane, the highly excited orgone within the membrane seeks fusion with
another organism in a way that would ensure its release. This can happen if the direction of the movement of the energy of
the second organism is identical with the first organisms energy flow. This is achieved, on Reichs understanding of
orgonotic superimposition, as the energy within each organism continues in the same direction as it escapes from each into
the other.
The orgasm reflex, for Reich, represents the attempt of the mass-free orgone energy of both organisms to reach out and
into the other, to expand beyond the confines of the membrane and fuse with the energy of the other. In the orgasm reflex, as
has been seen, the entire body musculature involuntarily convulses. Prior to the discovery of orgone energy, all Reich knew
was that when two organisms experience complete orgasm, they experience gratification, and the sexual organs became
refractory to any further excitement. His understanding of the way the energy moves and expands to escape the membrane
provided a much more profound comprehension of the orgasm reflex, for if he was correct, he now could see that the
involuntary convulsions allow for complete expansion and release of the energy within. Gratification occurs, he
hypothesized, because the pressure of the expanding energy within is released.21
In the genital embrace, or in copulation, two closed orgonomes (the bodies) penetrate genitally. The discovery of massfree orgone energy and the way it moves within organisms is exhibitive of the fact that human beings, like bions, protozoa,
and all living organisms, are bits of specially organized orgone energy with a membrane. When mutually excited sexually,
humans seek to merge bioenergetically. In copulation, when the organisms uninhibitedly reach acme, according to Reich, a

complete merger or fusion of the open orgonomes, of the mass-free orgone energy within the membranes, occurs.22
Although the closed orgonomes, the bodies, remain separated except for genital superimposition and membrane (skin)
contact, at merger the open orgonomes literally fuse and become one mass-free, open orgonome or orgone energy system.
An actual superimposition of mass-free systems, of selves, occurs. Each organism loses its self as the two selves become
unified into a new self. The organisms experience this fusion but not as an out-of-the-body experience, indicating that the
fused energy surrounds and interpenetrates the bodies touching the tissues and cells of each organism.
Because the energies are opposite in charge, they apparently neutralize each other, which accounts for the capacity to
fuse. Release of energy and neutralization of charge in fusion is subjectively experienced as a reduction of tension.
Gratification, then, is a function of release of ones own expanding energy and the neutralization of the charge in
superimposition with an energy system opposite in charge. The polarity of charge also functions to help the process of
expansion, for in being opposite in charge, the energy of each organism attracts or draws out the energy of the other.
This accounts for the fact that a complete merger of bioenergetic organisms of opposite polarity is more gratifying than the
release of tension experienced in masturbation, even if one is capable of a complete orgasm reflex during masturbation. In
this case, since there is no other organism of opposite polarity to attract or draw out the energy, the expanding energy
cannot be released fully. And since there is no other organism to fuse with, gratification will be incomplete since it is a
function of the neutralization effect of the merger. This indicates that when organisms are not oppositely charged, attraction
is not as strong, and bioenergetic merger (and consequent gratification) will be less complete.

Function and Structure

The original orgonome shape is formed by the movement of the mass-free energy, on Reichs analysis, but once formed,
the membrane has a shaping effect on the movement of the energy within it. Prior to formation of a membrane, in other
words, function precedes structurethe way the energy moves determines the shape the structure takes. Once the
membrane is formed, however, structure precedes functionthe shape of the membrane determines the path the movement
of the energy takes. The first functionwhere function precedes structureis exhibited in the orgonome shape, which has
its form because it is the result of the superimposition, in an orgastic convulsion, of two mass-free spinning waves.23 The
second functionwhere structure precedes functionis exhibited in the way the energy is forced to move within organisms
once the structure, the membrane, forms. In the case of the forming colpidia, the energy follows the shape of the membrane
and moves along the periphery of the organism. In the case of human beings, it moves from the tail end, over the back,
around the head, follows the form of the neck, and then returns toward the tail end over the front of the organism, expanding
along the front at various points. If there was no structure, no membrane, the energy would simply expand, but because of
the structure, it cannot do so. Still, it tends toward expansion and seeks to escape the membrane.
When luminated via sexual excitation, the energys tendency toward expansion increases simply because of the
increased pulsation and flow, which is to say that luminescence is an increase in pulsation and flow: excited orgone energy
is orgone energy that pulsates more quickly, thus expands more readily. Due to the existence of the membrane, the
structure, however, the energy cannot simply escape (although it does radiate more vividly as the orgone energy field). The
structure, in this case, represents what Gurdjieff calls second force to the energys impetus (first force) to expand beyond
the confines of the membrane. The function that acts as third force, or that which neutralizes first and second forcethat
allows the impetus or desire to become actualized by using the resistance, the structurecan be seen as the phenomenon
of attraction in combination with the orgasm reflex. Together, polarity difference and the orgasm reflex allow the energys
impetus toward expansion to occur.

Growth
The tension between the energys tendency toward expansion and the resistance of the membrane, according to Reich,
explains the phenomenon of growth and evolution.24 Membranes are not so rigid that they cannot expand (a biologist
pointed out to me that under a microscope, the membranes of bions and protozoa appear quite soft and yielding and are not
so drastically different than the contents they enclose). As the energy expands, the membrane stretches. Over the course of
time, Reich hypothesized, this process leads to new formations or elaborations of the membrane, new body parts, organs,
etc. (such as pseudopods and cilia in single-celled organisms). Carried out over eons, this process leads to formation of
more complex structures such as limbs, antennae, ears, the snout of animals, breasts, and so on (all forms of the orgonome
shape). That the energy moves from the tail end, over the back, and toward the head and that it expands along the front of
the body at various points explains why organisms develop or evolve in their fashion, for all the structures that evolve are
products of the movement of mass-free orgone energy as it expands and stretches the membrane.
Via this theory, Reich is able to explain why organisms and their parts have the shape they have, how the structure or
parts develop, the function of the orgasm and the orgasm reflex, the experience of gratification, and even the function of
knowledge, which, on Reichs theory, is a function of the same process of orgone energy expanding within and beyond the
confines of the membrane.25 This subject is explored in greater detail later, but we should note at this point that Reich
explains these functionseach of which remains a mystery to mechanistic sciencevia the use of one principle, the
common functioning principle of creation, the functioning of orgone energy.

Cosmic Superimposition in the Formation of Galaxies

Based on his observations of atmospheric orgone energy and on all the research cited in this book (including research
only mentioned here but which should be studied in detail for full comprehension and appreciation of what is to follow),
Reich developed the hypothesis that the universe is not empty but is filled with mass-free orgone energy, that it constitutes
an ocean of the energy that he calls the primordial cosmic orgone energy ocean.26
According to Reich, classical astrophysical research clearly (if unknowingly) demonstrated that the creation of certain
galactic systems is a product of the superimposition of two orgone energy streams,2 evidence for which, he says, can be
seen in photographs of spiral nebulae. The state of astronomical research is such that astronomers differ in their
interpretations of how galaxies are created, and because of this, there is no agreement as to how to determine galactic age.
Some astronomers believe the spiral form indicates the beginning stage of a growing galaxy, a view supported by Reichs
theory (it is held, for example, by Harlow Shapely whom Reich quotes).28
What initially exists is the cosmic orgone energy ocean in which unformed and structureless moving, pulsing streams of
orgone energy exist, a stage of galaxy development that can be seen, according to Reich, as the so-called irregular
galaxies.29 A later stage in galaxy growth, on Reichs analysis, occurs as two streams in the form of spinning waves mutually
approach one another and superimpose, forming a spiral nebulae with two or more arms. Merger and fusion occur at the
spiraling center, followed by concentration and microsuperimposition, which forms matter at the core in the form of a
progressively harder core or nucleus.
This stage is followed by formation of a disk-shaped or spheroidal galaxy moving progressively slower with the
disappearance of the spiral arms. (Reich includes a photograph of the Andromeda galaxy as an example of this stage.30)
Next comes formation of a globular cluster with single stars densest toward the center. (Reich includes a photograph of the
Great Hercules Cluster as an example of this stage.31)
The photographic evidence, says Reich, includes examples of spiral nebulae that indicate that the galaxies move in a
spiral fashion as Reichs theory predicts. On his theory, the spiraling motion of galaxies is a product of the superimposition of
spinning waves of mass-free orgone energy. As the waves superimpose, the galaxy forms and continues to spin in the
direction caused by the merger of the spinning waves. Other photographs, says Reich, clearly indicate that such galaxies
rotate, the form of movement entailed in his theory. This rotation is based on the same orgonotic process that causes the
plasm of bions, colpidia, and other organisms (at a certain stage of development) to rotate.
The evidence, on Reichs analysis, indicates that the spiral arms form from the superimposition of two or more streams of
orgone energy and that at a certain stage of development, a denser core develops from a process of solidification or
condensation, reminiscent of the condensation of orgone energy that caused formation of the flakes in Experiment XX. A
gravitational center appears to form like the formation of a nucleus on a cellular level. Photographs of heavenly bodies
indicate, says Reich, that they exhibit an orgone energy envelope, which rotates faster than the material core, something
Reich believes he verified with respect to the Earth via direct observation. The photographic evidence, says Reich, indicates
further that galaxies differentiate into a core and a periphery (a membrane) with an energy field, just like other entities
formed from orgone energy such as bions, protozoa, humans, etc.32
Mass, on Reichs theory, forms from the superimposition of galactic streams in a way similar to the way mass was
observed to form in Experiment XX, from condensation of mass-free orgone. At the point of merger, says Reich, the massfree spinning galactic streams lose kinetic energy as they spin. This leads to a circular motion, and mass forms as a product
of condensed or frozen kinetic energyfrozen or condensed mass-free orgone energy that had been in motion prior to
condensing as matter. Given that prior to formation of mass, function precedes structure, the mass would take the form of the
moving energy and represent it in frozen or condensed form. Reich states that he did not have sufficient evidence to
hypothesize what type of matter or particle (atom, electrontoday we can add quark, W particle, meson, and so on) would
form.

Orgonotic Potential
After superimposition and formation of a material particle, on Reichs theory, the particle, now the stronger system
orgonotically, attracts and absorbs mass-free orgone energy from the surrounding atmosphere, a process that mirrors what
was observed on a cellular level. This function represents, on a galactic scale, the tension-charge function (T-C function),
i.e., the orgasm formula, which, after the discovery of mass-free orgone energy, came to be understood as the function of
orgonotic potential, the strictly orgone energy relationship by which stronger orgonotic systemsthose with a higher
chargeattract weaker ones. It is due to this function, for example, that, as Reich found, the nucleus of cells attract orgone
energy from the cell plasm, red blood cells attract orgone energy from bions, and cell plasm attracts orgone energy from the
red blood cells (see below).
Orgonotic potential involves the flow of orgone energy from lower potential to higher potential and represents the charge
phase of the T-C function, corresponding to sexual excitation. Once the stronger system reaches a point of maximum charge,
the discharge phase of the T-C function occurs, and excess energy is released (as in orgasm, cellular mitosis, movement of
organisms, formation of the orgone energy field, etc.). As organized orgone energy beings, humans exhibit the charge
phase when we take in orgone energy in the form of food and air (and, as we shall see, in the form of impressions). Physical
food and air can be absorbed by humans because they have a lower orgonotic charge relative to us (until we are near death
when our charge becomes lower than the charge in the surrounding atmosphere, and we can no longer absorb the energy).
With growing galaxies, the growing galactic core or nucleus of the galaxy, being the stronger orgonotic system, attracts

the mass-free orgone energy in its atmosphere. This, says Reich, leads to formation of an orgone energy field, which
surrounds the core and forms a separate stream in the orgone energy ocean. The existence of such a field surrounding
galaxies is difficult to verify directly given current limitations of astronomical technique.33 With respect to planets, however,
Reich points out that growing astronomical research abounds to the effect that all planets have an energy field as does the
sun (the corona).34
Gases, which consist of particles such as atoms and molecules, Reich hypothesized, form in the atmosphere of planets
from superimposition of mass-free orgone streams within planetary envelopes. Concentration and condensation continues
to increase toward the center of the forming core (here Reich is speaking of planetary formation) with the heavier elements
located near the center and the lighter elements at the periphery (helium, hydrogen, neon, etc.) via the principle of orgonotic
potential.

Cosmic Superimposition as General Principle

Love
Love is a sacred word
Love is the name of God
The entire universe is created with Love, by Love, and in Love
Love is the beginning, Love is the continuation,
Love is the end . . . 35

Formation of galaxies, individual stars, solar systems, individual planets, moons; formation of bions, protozoa, and living
organisms of all kindsand even formation of a new self in bioenergetic merger (which is discussed in detail below as it
relates to Gurdjieffs ideas)on Reichs theory, are all products of orgone energy, the basic stuff of creation as such.36
Every created entity is created from the superimposition of oppositely charged streams of this energy; thus cosmic
superimposition is the common functioning principle of all creation.
On this theory, matter is continuously being created in the universe as streams of orgone energy approach one another,
luminate or become excited, and merge bioenergetically in an orgastic convulsion. Bioenergetic merger, therefore, is not
something that happens only with humans, animals, or biologically alive organisms. It happens wherever anything is created
by the superimposition of luminated orgone energy systems. This knowledge adds another dimension to the function of the
orgasm. Not only does it provide pleasure and release excess orgone energy that would form armoring and lead to
pathological cellular mitosis (see below) or lead to the experience of bioenergetic merger. It turns out that the orgasm is a
ubiquitous function and is the basis for the very shape of things as well as for the growth and evolution of everything existing.
This discovery, if correct, places on a scientific foundation something mystics, poets, philosophers, artists, and lovers have
known from personal experience but which mechanistic science and philosophy deny, that at the root of all of being is love.

Reichs Study of the Ring of the Aurora Borealis

We can now cite a number of observations and experiments Reich conducted that support this theory (some of which
were factors in its conception).
Firstly, there is Reichs study of the ring of the aurora borealis, the so-called northern lights. Classical physics, Reich
claims, had failed to logically explain the lumination effect of the aurora. Traditional theory was based on the concept of
ionization of the upper atmosphere, but it could not explain where the so-called ions, the particles, came from and how they
could come down from the sun over the distance of 90 to 100 million miles. (A recent theory, an elaboration of the
ionization theory, remains substantially unverified yet is considered a bold theoretical leap by astronomers.)37
The observations and considerations that led to Reichs theory of aurora luminescence can be summarized as follows:
Observations of auroras over a number of years showed that the color of the aurora is generally an intense blue, blue
gray to blue green.38 This is the color of orgone energy in its free state observable in protozoa, cancer cells, bions (to the eye
and color film), the frames of red blood cells (at a magnification of at least 2000x and when they are alive), the blue sky, the
blue color of deep inland lakes, the blue color of the ocean, thunderclouds, luminescence in charged vacuum tubes (to the
eye and color film), in a metal-lined orgone room, the glow of the firefly, the haze on a clear sunny day in front of mountain
ranges, sunspots, the flat valleys of the moon at dusk, and hurricanes (blue black).39 The streamer-type aurora was observed
to move in a slow, undulatory, and at times a pulsatory and wavelike manner like the movement of orgone light phenomenon
observed in Accumulators, in orgone rooms, in the atmosphere above lakes, etc. This same movement, says Reich, was
observed in highly charged tubes containing orgone energy excited by a moving orgone field derived from the body or the
hair. Given the observed differences in the way orgone energy moves and the way electromagnetic energy moves, Reichs
theory that the aurora luminescence is an orgone energy phenomena and not an ionization or electrical phenomenon
appeared to him to explain the observed movements better than the other theories.
Some auroras, Reich observed, exhibited a pushing or searching expression. Lest the hard scientist find such data
unacceptable, it should be noted that emotional expression, on Reichs theory, is expression of the mass-free orgone energy
within organisms. That orgone energy exhibits such expressions in other contextsfor example, as a raging storm, a
calm day, a plant searching for the sun, a gentle rain, etc.is not only not surprising but is implied by the theory.
Aurora borealis luminescence was observed to begin usually at the northern region and sometimes reached into the

upper atmosphere in pulsating streamers toward the zenith of the observer. A central ring of light formed in the region of the
zenith. The rays of luminescence were observed to emanate from the horizon toward the zenith, and a ring formed only
when it reached a certain intensity with a pulsating, pushing quality. When it overshot the zenith, the southern part of the sky
also luminated. The southern luminescence, like the northern, moved toward the zenith so that the two moved toward or
against one another and met several degrees south of the zenith (45 northern declination at the longitude of Orgonon, near
Rangely, Maine). The southern luminescence disappeared when the northern one receded from the zenith toward the north
and returned when the northern one returned to the zenith and beyond.40
These observations indicated that two atmospheric orgone energy fields were involved, the northern and the southern,
which, like orgone energy streams in the universe at large and with respect to biological organisms, excite one another or
luminate.
Sometimes the ring did not appear. The northern and southern luminations sometimes intertwined around each other,
receded slightly, intertwined again, separated again, merged again, and sometimes this process was observed to take a
spiral shape. At other times a clear ring formed.41 When the northern and southern luminescence fully developed, the
eastern and western sky luminated and a dome developed. As the ring or spiral disappeared, so did the dome. On pp. 246
7 of Cosmic Superimposition, Reich presents a table of his observations of auroras from 19461950 and, further on, a
detailed account of a number of specific auroras. When a ring appeared, says Reich, it appeared at an area of contact
between the two streams, reminiscent of the radiating bridge seen when red blood cells luminate with bions (see below).42
These observations led Reich to the conclusion that the aurora effect is due to orgonotic lumination at the outer fringes of
the earths orgone energy envelope between two orgone energy fields. The observations provided evidence that Reich took
as confirmation of his concept of planetary orgone energy fields and the existence of orgone energy streams in the universe.

The Equatorial and Galactic Orgone Energy Streams

Reichs observations of the aurora had implications with respect to his theory of orgone energy streams due to the
following considerations: It is known that the earth does not rotate around the sun in the same direction that it spins on its
axis. There is a difference of 23.5 in angle between the two movements, a difference known as the planetary tilt. It is also
known that the galactic plane, the plane of the earths rotation with respect to the Milky Way, is inclined toward the plane of
axis rotation, the equatorial plane, by an angle of 62.43 Reichs observations of the aurora are relevant to these facts for
Reich says that he observed that the position of the ring tended toward the middle of the galactic and equatorial planes. The
ring observed by Reich formed by an aurora that occurred on May 30, 1949, for example, was at approximately 31 northern
latitude, a position that precisely dissects the 62 angle that prevails between the equatorial and galactic planes. When it is
remembered that the ring was observed to form at the point of contact between the northern and southern luminations, the
fact that it tended to occur in the middle of the two planes takes on great significance on Reichs theories.
Reich asked himself if the formation of the ring at the midpoint between the two planetary planes and the fact that the
earth tilts 23.5 from its equatorial plane could be explained by the same theory (by a common functioning principle). Via the
concept of cosmic superimposition of orgone energy streams, he was able to do so.
Superimposition of such streams leads to formation of galaxies, planets, and all other matter in the universe. The streams,
however, do not cease to exist once matter is formed but continue to exist and influence planetary movements. An
observation of importance made earlier that provided evidence for this hypothesis was his observation that the orgone
envelope of earth moved faster than the planet in rotation. This observation had indicated that the envelope exists but also
gave an indication of its function in relation to planetary rotation. The observation Reich made of the aurora luminescence, to
the effect that it was due to the lumination of two streams of orgone energy, and observations made with respect to the
formation of storms (see below) indicated that orgone energy streams continue to function in the atmosphere of planets and
in space. Furthermore, Reich hypothesized, it is due to these streams that planets rotate in their respective orbits.
Via this theory, Reich could explain the 62 difference in the equatorial and galactic planes, the 23.5 planetary tilt, and
the reason why aurora rings form in the middle of these two planes. There are two orgone energy streams within the
planetary system, Reich hypothesized, inclined toward each other at an angle of approximately 62. One of these streams
carries the planet along its axis, along, in other words, the equator. This stream is the Equatorial Orgone Energy Stream. The
other stream carries the planet in its rotation around the sun and is inclined at an angle of approximately 62 toward the
Equatorial Stream. Reich called the second stream the Galactic Orgone Energy Stream.
The planetary tilt effect of 23.5 toward the equator, Reich theorized, represents the product of these two streams. Why is
this angle not 31 as it would be if the two streams exerted the same pull on the planet? This could only be explained if it
were hypothesized that the Equatorial Stream exerts the stronger pull, causing the planet to lean closer to it than to the
Galactic Stream. This theory hypothesizes that planets do not spin on their axis or rotate in space due to some unknown
force or to the curvature of empty space but that they are carried by the orgone energy streams like balls on the waves of
the ocean and that their orbits and angles of rotation are due to the influence of these streams.

Reichs Study of the Formation of Hurricanes

Reichs study of hurricane formation provides, says Reich, startling confirmation of this theory.44 A photograph of a
hurricane taken August 22, 1949, by a navy photographer (reprinted on p. 260 of Cosmic Superimposition) shows the
hurricane consisting of two arms merged into the eye or the core of the hurricane. The arms appear to be approaching

each other from nearly opposite directions. They curve inward toward each other and merge at the core in the same way
Reich pictured spinning waves of mass-free orgone as they become attracted and superimpose to form matter at the core.
Photographs of other hurricanes exhibit the same phenomenon. Is it a matter of chance that hurricanes form this way?
When seen later in time, the same hurricanes showed the arms less clearly, while the cores had grown larger. The direction
of spin of the hurricanes, however, remained consistent throughout their lifetimes, i.e., it remained counterclockwise.
It is an established fact that hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern.
Could this behavior be explained by the theory of orgone energy streams carrying the planet through space, and did this
consistent behavior of hurricanes add evidence to this theory? Hurricanes look amazingly like galaxies in photographs, and
the stages of hurricane growth (due to the fact that they can be relatively easily observed) was known. The stages appear to
mirror the stages of galaxy growth according to Reichs theory of galaxy formation. Do hurricanes form in the same general
way as galaxies, except on a smaller scale (or, as Gurdjieff would say, with respect to a smaller cosmos)?
The arms of galaxies, on Reichs hypothesis, represent the original mass-free orgone energy streams that had become
attracted, had approached one another, and had merged to form the galaxies. If the arms of hurricanes also represent
streams of orgone energy, what streams would they represent? Reichs theory regarding the reasons for the planetary tilt
was that two planetary streams carry the planet through space. Could the arms of hurricanes represent these streams?
Evidence for an affirmative answer to this question can be found in charts and graphs indicating paths hurricanes
typically take both in the northern and southern hemispheres, according to Reich. His theory suggests that they would form
in accordance with the paths of the Equatorial and Galactic streams, which cross at the point on the equator inclined at an
angle of approximately 62.
On Reichs theory, as the streams approach one another (both moving west to east) the streams would meet, merge, and
form hurricanes, which in the northern hemisphere would spin counterclockwise and in the southern, clockwise. A chart of
hurricane paths from 1874 to 1933, reprinted on p. 268 of Cosmic Superimposition, shows that the paths hurricanes take is
in accord with what Reichs theory entails. The fact that hurricanes do spin in the directions the theory entails they would if
they were formed by superimposition of the two streams adds evidence as to the validity of the theory.
To be valid, the theory would also have to account for the seasonal occurrence of hurricanes, from May to September in
the northern hemisphere, with a frequency peak in September. In September, the ecliptic, the true path of the planet around
the sunon Reichs theory, the product of the influence of the two streams on the planets motionapproaches and crosses
the equatorial plane. On the current theory of celestial motion, this is a crossing, in quotation marks, a mathematical rather
than a substantive or real event. On Reichs theory it is a crossing of two substantive orgone energy streams, the Equatorial
and the Galactic.
At the point where they cross, where the two streams meet, hurricanes are stimulated, on Reichs theory, by physical
contact of the streams as they cross. The streams continue on their way and leave products of their merger, the hurricanes,
with remnants of their presence, the arms, in their wake. The arms reveal the direction of the respective paths of the streams
and the approximate angle at which they crossed. That hurricane development occurs at the time Reichs theory predicts is
further evidence of its validity.

Gravity
The existence and convergence of orgone energy streams and their function with regard to planetary motion implies a
theory of gravity that removes this notion from its current status as a mystico-mathematical postulate.45 Gravity, of course, has
intrigued philosophers and scientists ever since it was recognized. Einstein explained it via his theory of curved space. This
theory, though perhaps mathematically workable, is difficult to comprehend in model form for it appears to defy our basic
sense of reality (those who favor the theory claim that this is not the fault of the theory, of course, but of our limited
perspective). The difficulty lies in the concept that something emptyin this case, empty spaceis curved. We can imagine
a physical body or even an energy stream curved, but it is hard to understand what the notion of curved space means. In this
respect, this theory is like that of the current theories of light, that it consists of massless particles or waves in empty space,
each notion an apparent contradiction in terms.46
Reichs theory may suffer defects or leave questions unanswered, but it does not suffer the defect of unintelligibility.
Space, on his theory, is conceived of as not empty but filled with cosmic orgone energy. Celestial motion is explained as a
function of the movement of streams of this energy that carry the heavenly bodies through the cosmic orgone ocean. Gravity
is seen as a function of the convergence of these streams.
Newton pictured the motion of the moon around the earth in terms of his concept of gravity, that the moon moved as if it
were falling toward the center of the earth without, however, reaching it. On Reichs model of what moves celestial bodies,
the moon is carried on an orgone energy stream like the other bodies. If it seems to fall toward the center of the earth without
ever reaching it, this is because the streams that carry the moon and the earth cross at certain regular intervals. This
indicates that the orbits of the moon and the earth, like all celestial bodies, are open rather than circular (Copernicus) or
elliptical (Kepler). Their open paths have the form of the spinning wave.47
Stellar and planetary bodies, on this model, do not necessarily pull one another, causing their orbits, but orbits occur
because the bodies are carried by their streams, which periodically cross one another (like the Equatorial and Galactic
streams that, in Reichs theory, cause hurricane formation). The streams are older than the bodies, of course, since the

bodies were created from their superimposition. This means that gravity, as the term that identifies the phenomenon of
attraction between celestial bodies, for Reich, is a secondary phenomenon, the primary phenomenon being the movement
of the mass-free streams within the ocean.
Gravity, then, on Reichs theory, represents condensed or frozen orgonotic potential of mass-free orgone energy streams.
The streams that carry the planets attracted gravitationally have a common direction of movement, a common plane of
motion, and are coordinated in terms of the speed at which they move. The heavenly bodies that they carry, therefore, also
have a common direction of movement, a common plane of motion, their centers mutually approach one another as the
streams carrying them approach one another, and they are mutually coordinated in terms of the speed of their spinning
motion.
Kepler, Reich points out, believed that behind celestial motion was a prime mover, a living force or vis animalis, an idea
of Keplers that is usually ignored by science (just as it ignores Newtons interest in mysticism and Einsteins belief in God).
Reich, if his theory is correct, has discovered this force and not via mystical intuition. Orgone energy streams are the prime
movers of the heavenly bodies.

Notes
1. CB, p. 63.
2. Ibid., p. 64. A Table of many liquids tested can be found here.
3. Ibid., p. 65.
4. Ibid., p. 65.
5. Ibid., p. 68.
6. Ibid., p. 70.
7.

See Reginald E. Allen (ed.), Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle (New York: The Free Press, 1966), pp. 28ff. On
Chuang Tzu, see Wing-Tsit Chan, op. cit., p. 204.

8. See, for example, L. L. Whyte, Aspects of Form (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1966).
9. CS, pp. 198-9.
10. In Offshoots of Orgonomy, no. 5 (Autumn 1982): pp. 32-9.
11. CS, p. 185.
12. Ibid., p. 183.
13. Ibid., p. 186.
14. Ibid., p. 202.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., pp. 202ff.
17. Ibid., p. 210.
18. Ibid., p. 211.
19.

Ibid., p. 206. It is clear that the empirically observable interconnectedness of nature is but a corner of the vast jeweled
net which moves from without to within. The spiral (think of nebulae) and spiral conch (vulva/womb) is a symbol of the
Great Goddess. It is charming to note that physical properties of spiral conches approximate the Indian notion of the
world-expanding dance, expanding form . . . The maze dances, spiral processions, cats cradles, Micronesian string
star charts, mandalas and symbolic journeys of the old wild world are with us still in the universally distributed childrens
game hopscotch. Let poetry and bushmen lead the way in a great hop forward (Gary Snyder, Great Earth Household
[New Direction, 1969]).

20. CS, pp. 214-19.

21. Ibid., p. 235.
22. Ibid., p. 216.
23. Ibid., pp. 217-18.
24. Ibid., pp. 214ff.
25. Ibid., pp. 277ff.
26. Ibid., pp. 185ff.
27. Ibid., p. 225.
28. Ibid., p. 227.
29. Ibid., p. 229.
30. Ibid., p. 230.
31. Ibid., p. 231.
32. Ibid., p. 228.
33. Learned at a lecture at Kitt Peak, Arizona, in December 1982.
34. As recent satellite photographs of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune indicate more than ever.
35. Swami Satchindananda, on Alice Coltraines Wings of Fire (Impulse Records).
36. CS, pp. 237-8.
37. Reported in the NY Times Magazine (December 12, 1982), in an article by Bruce Brown.
38. The photographs accompanying Browns article (see note 37) confirm these observations.
39. CS, pp. 240-1.

40. Ibid., pp. 242-4.

41. Ibid., p. 245.
42. Ibid., p. 252.
43. Ibid., pp. 249ff.
44. Ibid., pp. 258-72.
45. Ibid., pp. 273ff.
46.

See The End of Physics, David Lindley (New York: Basic Books, 1993), for an in-depth study of current mathematicsmystical ideas at the basis of contemporary cosmology and physics. See also The Trouble with Physics, a recent
investigation of string theory, by Lee Smolin.

47. CS., p. 274.

CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
The Unity of Creation

We are now in a position to attempt to discriminate the nature of the most general laws of the universe based on
Gurdjieffs model of creation and Reichs theory of cosmic superimposition. Doing so will afford us more data with which to
better understand what is involved in the evolution of our consciousness.
Gurdjieff expresses his concept of creation in Beelzebubs Tales in the form of a myth or allegory. Elsewhere he presents
it in the form of the symbol of the Ray of Creation. One assumes there is a meaning hidden in the allegory and the symbol,
but precisely what it is may be impossible to say. Still, on Gurdjieffs model of creation, we gain an impression of the
profound unity of the cosmos, that the myriad phenomena and laws we experience here on the surface of our planet are all
manifestations of one lawthat, in other words, there is a common functioning principle that governs all of being. There is
also the impression that should we come to understand this law, we could better live our lives for we would then understand
the function, meaning, and purpose of our existence and, indeed, of all existence. Beelzebub makes it clear that he thinks
such an understanding is essential for three-brained beings who wish to evolve in consciousness.
The unity of creation is represented, for Gurdjieff, by the concept or symbol of the Absolute. Out of itselfout of this utterly
simple something-or-otheremanates the Great Megalocosmos, or All Worlds, functionally identified as the cosmos under
three laws.1
What this means, of course, is very difficult to say. There is no attempt, on Gurdjieffs part, to point to a means of proof.
There is nothing we can do to test the ideas except to think about them, feel them, and attempt to evolve so we can
experience something that forces us to see, directly, what they mean. I find the ideas compelling and believe that with them
and Reichs scientific hypotheses, one can gain a sense of the meaning of the Absolute and the Great Megalocosmos found
via no other perspective.
Gurdjieff does tell us what he thinks two of the three laws of the Great Megalocosmos are. He says that there are two laws
that are universally applicable within the Great Megalocosmos, within, in other words, everything existing. These two laws
are Triamazikamno, or the Law of Three, and Heptaparaparshinokh, the Law of Seven.2
The Law of Seven refers to processes and expresses the notion that all processes require periodic stimulation or shocks
from outside to continue in the direction they began.3 As we have seen, the process of food digestion and energy
transformation is an example of the functioning of this law. The Law of Three refers to existence of entities, or things in the
most general sense of the term, and, as we have seen, expresses the notion that every entity is a product of three forces, an
impetus (first force), a resistance (second force), and a neutralizing force (third force) or apparatus that enables first
force to achieve its aim through second force.4
Given that the Law of Seven and the Law of Three are two of the three most important laws, what is the third law in the
Great Megalocosmos? And does it bear any relation to the One Law of the Absolute? I think it does. I think, in fact, that the
third law we are looking for is the One Law of the Absolute as it is manifested in the Great Megalocosmos. I reason thusly:
the Law of Three is clearly represented in the Great Megalocosmos in that this is the cosmos that is said to function under
three laws. The Law of Seven is represented in the cosmos in that processes of creation of individual galaxies, the cosmos
said to emanate out of this cosmos, begin here, and the Law of Seven is the law of process. Neither the Law of Three nor the
Law of Seven could be found separately within the Absolute since no separation prevails there, no specific processes or
entities. Only one law functions in the Absolute, and the laws of Three and Seven are two laws. These laws thus represent
what is new in the Great Megalocosmos, what distinguishes it from the Absolute most clearly. The third law represents what
is old. It represents the Absolute itself within the Great Megalocosmos. As such, it represents third force in the cosmos, or the
apparatus by which entities are created via processes. This third law of the Great Megalocosmos is sometimes spoken of as
the Will of the Absolute, or Divine Will.5
Gurdjieff says that the Absolute directly created only the Great Megalocosmos and could have created only this cosmos,
that in other words, there is a necessity to creation that transcends any acts based on Divine Will. The Absolute could no
more have created the world of a planet, under forty-eight laws, directly from the one law, for example, than a man can
create a microbe or a chair just by wishing it. There are steps that must be taken, on this model, inexorable processes that
must be passed through.
When viewed in terms of energy, the world of the one law represents the finest or most conscious energy, and that of
three laws, a level directly below it in terms of consciousness and material density. To say we move down the Ray of
Creation, in other words, means that energy is becoming more and more materially dense, less and less vibratory and
conscious. The various laws that pertain to denser cosmos represent how the various entities and processes, or cosmic
concentrations created out of the original energy form, interrelate and function.

Galaxies or All Suns

Gurdjieff says the prime-source substance, etherokrilno, prevails in pure, undifferentiated form prior to formation of any
specific entities.6 This means that it exists in the Great Megalocosmos (under three laws) since this cosmos is said to
represent creation prior to the existence of specific entities such as galaxies, stars, planets, and so on. If it is correct to say
that the three laws of the Great Megalocosmos are the Law of Seven, the Law of Three, and what is sometimes referred to as
the Will of the Absolute, then something must be happening with respect to etherokrilno within the Great Megalocosmos, the
results of the interplay of the three laws. This something is whatever goes on there to produce the next cosmos, the cosmos
called All Suns (under six laws).
In other words, although the Great Megalocosmos represents an elaboration of the Absolute, the cosmos where specific
cosmic concentrations are formed is reserved for the level below it in density, namely, All Suns, the cosmos of galaxies, the
primal cosmic concentrations, which are said to function under six laws. Being entities in process, galaxies have parts and
undergo change, and the six laws of All Suns would represent the principles of the formation, functioning, and interrelation of
the galaxies and their parts.
On Reichs theory, as we have seen, galaxies are created out of the primordial cosmic orgone energy ocean, specifically
as a result of the superimposition of two or more streams of mass-free orgone energy that come together and merge in an
orgastic convulsion producing mass at the point of merger. Prior to galactic formation, for Reich, all that exists are streams of
orgone energy, a state of being that appears equivalent in scale at least to Gurdjieffs Great Megalocosmos or All Worlds.
Merging Reich and Gurdjieff, we can form the following hypothesis: streams of mass-free orgone energy function according
to the three laws of the Great Megalocosmos.
Reichs theory of mass-free streams of orgone energy can be put in terms of the Law of Three in the same way that any
three aspects of anything is put: first force represents the impetus of the streams, second force the obstacles that impede
their movement, and third force the apparatus by which their impetus overcomes the obstacles and allows the streams to
merge in formation of the next cosmos, a galaxy. Reichs theory can be put in terms of the Law of Seven in that the streams
themselves are processes and, as such, would function according to this law. This would have to be verified, of course,
before we can say it is the case. To test for this hypothesis would be to observe how streams get started, the first shock, and
what acts on them from the outside to keep them going, the other shocks. Gurdjieffs model could serve as a hypothetical
scientific model for scientists who found it compelling and fruitful in terms of guiding research.
If the analysis is correct, the two laws interact to originate the streams via an impetus that overcomes resistances, and the
streams continue in motion as further stimuli or shocks are provided. In one sense the Law of Seven represents the
movement of the streams; the Law of Three, how the streams relate to one another.

The One Law

What, then, is the third or neutralizing law in the Great Megalocosmos, the principle by which the laws of Seven and
Three produce the next cosmos or galaxies, the principle identified symbolically by Gurdjieff as the Will of the Absolute as it
functions in All Worlds?
On Reichs theory, the apparatus by which orgone energy streams mergethe function by which the impetus of the
streams to merge overcomes resistances to the mergeris an orgastic convulsion of the streams out of which mass, or the
galactic core, is created. This function, when superimposed with Gurdjieffs concepts, stands as third force in the Great
Megalocosmos. It represents, in other words, the elaboration or specification of the One Law of the Absolute as it functions in
All Worlds. This is to say that the orgastic convulsion of streams of mass-free orgone energy in the primordial cosmic orgone
energy ocean can be symbolically represented, in Gurdjieffs terms, as the Will of the Absolute as it functions in All Worlds.
To deduce the nature of the One Law itself as it functions in (or as) the Absolute is to determine the ground or condition
out of which the orgastic convulsion, as it pertains to mass-free streams of orgone energy, emerges. What, then, might this
ground be? What is the One Law, the most fundamental law of being? Are we asking too much if we think we can
discriminate it? Are we exhibiting false pride, as if we, mere humans, could come to understand what amounts, in Gurdjieffs
system, to the essence of divinity? Yet, according to Gurdjieff, we embody the One Law, are replicas of the Great
Megalocosmos, thus, in this sense, at least, are not so far from being able to comprehend it in some fashion. For, from this
perspective, to know the essence of ourselves is to know the essence of the Great Megalocosmos and perhaps even of the
Absolute itself if only in reduced or denser form.
The orgastic convulsion, as it pertains to streams of mass-free orgone energy of the Megalocosmos, requires three
elements: the existence of two oppositely charged or attracted streams, a substance or energy out of which the streams
emerge, and a third element that makes it possible for the streams to emerge from the substance-energy in the first place. In
Chinese philosophy, as we have seen, the prime energy is often identified as chi; the opposite forces that emerge out of it
as Yin and Yang; and the third factor that makes it possible for Yin and Yang to emerge from chi or Tao as change or
movement.7
If we say that the prime-source substance etherokrilno or orgone energy becomes, divides, or condenses into oppositely
charged forces or streams because of change, have we explained it? Is there anything inherent in the principle of change
that leads to the existence of oppositely charged forces or streams?
The most clearly observable yet ubiquitous property of orgone energy, for Reicha property observed in

microorganisms, in larger organisms like people, in the orgasm, in the atmosphere, and the discrimination and formalization
of which led to the discovery of orgone energyis not simply change or movement, however, but pulsation. Everything, on
this analysis, pulsatesthe macrocosmos as well as the microcosmos (galaxies, the microwave background radiation in
space, subatomic particles). In this respect, pulsation satisfies Gurdjieffs condition that the One Law prevails throughout the
Ray of Creation in some form. Pulsation, of course, is a form of movement or change. Is it the movement that accounts for the
formation of oppositely charged streams in the original seamless orgone energy ocean?
Pulsation is not mere movement or change but a form of movement that follows a specific pattern, for in itself pulsation
involves two opposite polesit consists in the swing between expansion and contraction. It does not appear accidental
then, that streams of opposite charge emerge from the primary substance, for the substance itself pulsates in opposite
swings, thus determining, I would think, the essence of what emerges from it. When we consider the nature of movement or
change, in fact, it seems reasonable to theorize that pulsation is at the very heart of it.
We can hypothesize then that out of the pulsation of the primordial orgone energy ocean emerge the opposite streams of
orgone energy, which we can call Yin and Yang. The streams, once formed, continue to pulsate. They pulsationally spin and
move, connecting them to Gurdjieffs law of process (seven); they pulsationally become attracted, luminate, come together,
and fuse in the pulsational function known as the orgastic convulsion, connecting them to Gurdjieffs law of entity (three). If
not for the original pulsation, no streams would formno Yin, no Yangand there would be no merger. Nothing would
emerge, and the nature of being would be as some Chinese philosophers maintain it was before there was anything,
namely, Wu Chi, or absolute nothingness, forever.8
The One Law of the Absolute, on this analysis, is pulsation. But as far as I can tell and for Reich and Gurdjieff as well,
pulsation cannot occur in a vacuum; there must be something pulsating. Orgone energy, in its mass-free state, can be
observed pulsating, and if Reich is correct, everything is created out of it. For Gurdjieff, what exists when nothing else does is
pure, undifferentiated etherokrilno. It seems reasonable to say, then, that the Absolute itself can be nothing other than
etherokrilno, or unformed, mass-free, undifferentiated orgone energy. All it does alone is pulse.
(This assumes that mass-free, undifferentiated orgone energy ever is actually alone, that it can exist without its
creations at some point/s in time. I have my doubts about this. It seems to me that the One and the Many exist or prevail
together, that the One cannot exist without the Many and vice versa, and that this, in fact, is the very essence and meaning of
the One! If this is true, this means that speaking of the Absolute as alone is simply a way of speaking or an abstraction that
prevails only in thought and not in fact.)

The Absolute
Wu Chi
The Primordial Cosmic Orgone Energy Ocean
Etherokrilno
(Pulsation)

All Worlds
Seven

(Pulsation)

Movement

Three
Relation

Orgastic
Convulsion

All Suns
Seven
(1)(2)

(Pulsation)
(3)(4)

The Highest Laws

Figure 10

Three
(5)(6)

Notes
1. BT, p. 753.
2. BT, pp. 748ff.
3. BT, pp. 750ff, 813-70, and passim.
4. BT, pp. 138-9, 751, and passim.
5. Ibid., p. 756.
6. Ibid., pp. 137ff.
7. See Jou Tsung Hwa, The Tao of Tai-Chi Chuan (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle), pp. 77ff.
8. Ibid.

PART V
The Evolution and Involution
of Consciousness

CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
Consciousness means, literally, knowing-together. A development of consciousness would therefore mean knowing more together, and so it would bring about a new
relationship to everything previously known. For to know more always means to see things differently.1

Immortality

soteric traditions usually picture consciousness expanding or evolving in stages or levels, and they claim that
ultimately, as one evolves, one transcends the limits of physical existence and becomes, in some sense, immortal. The
physical body dies, but if consciousness has developed sufficiently, what evolves does not die with it. Various traditions
name the goal differently, as, for example, awakening the Atman, entering nirvana, becoming one with Tao, preparing
for the coming of the Meshiach, retrieving the sparks, becoming the Christ, moving toward the One, reaching the level
of the Absolute, climbing Jacobs Ladder, ascending the Ray of Creation,2 and so on. The levels are referred to as, for
example, opening the lower chakras and then the higher ones and developing spirit bodies,3; entering realms such as
the infinity of space, the infinity of consciousness, the realm of nothingness,4; ascending through the Four Worlds5; and
so on. Though the names differ, and perhaps the meaning and understanding as well, there appears to remain something
essential that these ideas have in commonthe notion that if consciousness is developed sufficiently, something other than
simple physical death awaits us, either immediately upon the death of the physical body or some time later, as, for example,
in the idea of the resurrection of the bodies of the just at the end of time.6
Gurdjieff employs the concept of higher-being bodies: higher levels of consciousness become crystallized in the form of
finer bodies each corresponding to a higher level of consciousness. The idea, when taken literally, is that actual bodies
survive the death of the physical body. Because of the nature of Gurdjieffs method of transmission, however, it is impossible
to say with absolute certainty if he meant his teachings regarding these bodies to be taken literally. In the following, we shall
make a leap and go on the assumption that the concept of the higher-being bodies can be taken literally and attempt to
explain how, when so taken, it can reasonably be understood.
The physical body, said to be under forty-eight laws (when we are awake, when in waking-sleep we are under more than
forty-eight laws), is said to return to its origins, the earth, when it dies (it is also said that certain emanations of it feed the
moon).7 The Higher Emotional Body, said to be composed of the matter of the planetary world, is also said to be able to
survive the death of the physical body. The Higher Mental Body is said to be able to survive the death of the Higher
Emotional Body, while the Fourth Body, the Soul, said to be made of material so fine that nothing within the solar system can
destroy it, is thus said to be immortal within its limits.8 The Soul, however, in Gurdjieffs teaching, is not immortal in an
absolute sense. Whatever is a cosmic concentration, whatever is born out of the prime-source substance, etherokrilno, for
Gurdjieff, eventually dies. Immortality, for him, is thus relative. We are relatively immortal as compared to a cell of our body;
the sun is relatively immortal as compared to us; All Worlds as compared to the sun; the Absolute as compared to All Worlds.
Each of the higher-being bodies is relatively immortal as compared to the ones below it in scale.
In Beelzebubs Tales, even the Absolutecalled The Holy Sun Absoluteis spoken of as a cosmic concentration and
so something that is born and dies.9 It is not said whether or not etherokrilno is born and dies. Not being a cosmic
concentration as such but the material from which all such concentrations originate, etherokrilno could be conceived of as
Being Itself, which, logically speaking at least, could not be born and so could not die. Gurdjieff says nothing about this,
however, and makes it clear that when he speaks of immortality, he means relative immortality and implies that those who
like to think of immortality as if it were absolute, as life eternal, are deluding themselves.

Verification of the Theory of Higher-Being Bodies

The idea that souls can be created, from the point of view of Western science, is a mystical idea, an idea that cannot be
verified in fact or even in principle in terms of scientific method. Yet the relationship between reaching a position from which
one can verify such a theory and actually verifying it reflects the relationship of perception or position-to-verify and
verification in general. One cannot verify any theory without the proper organ, tool, instrument, or understanding. If only one
man had eyes, his description of light and colors would be considered mystical, unverifiable, and mad by the rest of us.
Without a microscope, we could not verify the existence of bacteria; with no particle accelerators, we could not verify, even in
the current indirect manner, the existence of quarks. If an Orgone Energy Accumulator is not built correctly, or if the
atmosphere is not dry enough, the observer, too, armored, verification of the existence of orgone energy via use of the tool
may not be possible even if under other conditions it would be.
To verify the existence of a higher-being body, either as a psychological state or as an actual body, we need to develop
the proper research tool, the proper organ, the body, the psychological state itself; otherwise we cannot be in a position to
accept or reject the concept. If we reject the idea without doing the work said to be required, we exhibit a kind of mysticism
ourselves. This is not to say that the concept of higher-being bodies (in whatever form) should be simply accepted. To those
of us in waking-sleep, who do not as yet possess the requisite organs, the idea can only be hypothetical anyway. If it

appears reasonable to us, we can use it as a working hypothesis to guide our research. If it appears unreasonable, we
ignore it. Prior to development of the correct research equipment, however, we have no right to make a judgment concerning
the validity of the theory.

The Direction toward Expansion: The Laws of Seven and Three

The discoveries of Reich are relevant to these ideas, although he had no interest in concepts such as higher-being
bodies or relative immortality. For him, the idea of a soul is simply a nonverifiable or mystical personification of a concrete,
physical realitythe pulsation of mass-free orgone energy within the body.10 The following application of Reichs
discoveries to Gurdjieffs ideas concerning the possible development of higher-being bodies, therefore, is not attributable to
Reich himself in any way whatsoever.
Reich did make a number of discoveries that are relevant to the concept of the expansion of consciousness. There is, for
example, his finding that the self or our consciousness is a bit of specially organized orgone energy contained within a
membrane and emanating beyond the membrane as an orgone energy field. This discovery directly confirms Gurdjieffs
teaching that the self is a quantum of energy that emanates beyond the body as the bodys atmosphere.11 Another of Reichs
discoveries that can be seen to pertain to Gurdjieffs teaching concerning the possible expansion and evolution of our
consciousness is his finding that when not forced by circumstances to remain chronically contracted, orgone energy within
membranes tends toward expansion. On Reichs discoveries, therefore, it can be said that consciousness, when not
impeded, tends toward expansion.
The general process of orgone energys tendency toward expansion was observed, as we have seen, in the formation of
colpidia from the organization of bions, and similar phenomena were observed with other microorganisms, including the
cancer cell (see below). The observations not only provide a basis for a general theory of growth, which functionally explains
the growth of organisms and the shape of organisms and organs of all kinds, but they also lead toward an understanding of
the growth of consciousness. Direction toward expansion, toward growth, is antientropictoward order or organization
and represents a specific property of orgone energy as it organizes itself.
The discovery is relevant to Gurdjieffs teaching regarding the laws of Seven and Three, at least from a general point of
view. It shows that there are processes in nature, which Gurdjieff pictures in terms of the octave, that tend toward
organization or order, that move against the downward flow of the Ray of Creation (a movement that is toward less order and
more laws). As mentioned, for Gurdjieff, each note in such an octave or process is a function of the Law of Three: first force
meets second force, and they merge in the presence of third force to produce the note. In Reichs terms, growth is a function
of pulsation. Each pulse consists of a movement of contraction and one of expansion. Here the type of third force involved
would be a function of whether or not impediments dominate and so would determine the direction of flow, either toward
expansion or toward contraction, toward fulfillment of first force (expansion) or second force (contraction). Expansion would
represent first force since the tendency of the pulsating orgone is toward expansion, toward growth, meaning that growth,
development, expansion, evolution, etc., is the fundamental desire (so to speak) of the living being.
For Gurdjieff, growth occurs as the Law of Three and the Law of Seven merge; their merger causes movement. Gurdjieff
conceives of this process generally, in the sense that movement can be either toward or against order, up or down the Ray
of Creation. Reichs discovery concerning the antientropic property of orgone energy is related to the movement against the
downward flow of the Ray, toward order; his discovery concerning disintegration of specially organized orgone energy
systems (especially related to The Cancer Biopathy, discussed below) relates to the opposite direction, toward entropy or
less order (on the Ray, toward more laws).
Reichs discovery does not confirm the laws of Seven and Three in the specific form Gurdjieff discriminates them, of
course, but merely that directional, pulsational processes occur in nature as a function of mass-free orgone energy and
orgone energy systems. The discovery is significant for those who wish to comprehend Gurdjieffs ideas, however, for it
provides a scientific context, a concrete, experimentally verifiable basis for the notion that processes occurring in nature
involve the merger of oppositely charged forces, which provide energy for directional movement of the processes, either
toward evolution (creation) or toward involution (disintegration).

The Mind/Body Problem

The two discoveries mentioned, that the self is a bit of specially organized orgone energy and that orgone energy in its
mass-free form tends toward expansion, help to explain the concept of the expansion of consciousness in a way that, as far
as I know, no other scientific theory can. Colloquial expressions such as the growth of knowledge, an expanded
awareness, grow through learning, etc., express a common belief in two things: that consciousness exists and that it can
grow or expand. Still, it remains problematic what consciousness consists of and so what it means when it is said that it
grows or expands.
Here we have the so-called mind/body problem, one that has perplexed philosophers and scientists ever since we began
to wonder about it. The tendency in the West for many centuries has been to see mind and body as separate. Plato, as
usually interpreted, for example, conceived of ideas as if they came from a realm apart from that of body.12 Plotinus
apparently thought so little of the body that he could not imagine that such a lofty thing as mind could be related to it except
by accident.13 Descartes concluded that mind and body are completely separate and unrelated, and, like all the kings
horses and all the kings men, philosophers ever since have been trying to put them back together.1 4 ( Spinoza
accomplished this task a generation or so after Descartes, but not too many philosophers or other researchers interested in

the mind/body problem have paid much attention to his solution.)

Contemporary science remains in the dark concerning the nature of consciousness. Biochemistry and neuroscience
focus on the brain cells and the chemical and molecular processes involved. Psychiatry uses chemicals to influence
consciousness, but it remains unknown how they work or even whether, as, for example, in the case of depression,
depressive thoughts cause chemical changes in the brain, or chemical changes cause depressing thoughts.15 Present-day
research in the biochemistry and neuroscience of learning focus on, among other things, primitive forms of learning, but how
the results of this work will eventually be found to be related to human consciousness remains a mystery.16
To physicists, research into the biochemistry of consciousness is not fundamental, for chemical processes are thought to
be rooted in the interaction of particles on the atomic and subatomic level. These interactions are conceived of in
mechanical or mathematical terms as functions of blind forces spinning and smashing together in empty space (from the
point of view of particle physics, living organisms are well over 99 percent empty space, although recent theories concerning
dark matter and dark energy may change things). The discovery that the position of subatomic particles cannot be
determined with precision when the velocity can, and vice-versa, a discovery known as the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle, has been taken by some to indicate that freedom of choice or consciousness is rooted in the subatomic realm.17 If
everything is ultimately a product of such interactions and if consciousness exists, then, ipso facto, consciousness is a
product of such interactions. The current state of our knowledge of subatomic processes, however, is not such that any
secure conclusions regarding consciousness can be drawn from it.
Furthermore, ascription of the roots of consciousness to the quantum mechanical realm does not necessarily remove the
age-old dilemma of relating mind and body, for if subatomic processes consist in interaction of blind forces and particles,
how consciousnessor that which is, by definition, not blindemerges from them remains problematic. That mind and body
appear irreconcilable if thought of as distinct entities has led to materialism, on the one hand, where mind is reduced to body
conceived of as a result of chemical or physical interactions or, as with behaviorism, as a way of speaking about behavior
and, on the other hand, to idealism, where body is reduced to mind.18
Gurdjieffs solution of the mind/body problem, as mentioned, is based on his concept that everything in the universe is the
same stuff at various densities. Consciousness, for him, is everywhere: the densest energy-matter is the densest
consciousness, the finest energy-matter is the finest consciousness (the most conscious consciousness), and all differences
in consciousness equal differences in energy-matter density.19 Because Gurdjieff says everything is material, some might
take him to be a materialist, but since he also conceives of material as consciousness, he can be taken as an idealist. It is
not fair to call him a materialist, however, not if this is taken to mean that he thinks consciousness can be reduced to blind
interactions of material forces, for he says that material is not blind; and it is not fair to call him an idealist, not if this is taken
to mean that he thinks matter can be reduced to unsubstantial mind, for he says that matter is substantial.
Gurdjieffs ideas do not fit neatly into either category for they take into account a third factor and express the notion that
mind and body are grounded in a common third, variously called matter, energy, matter-energy, matter-energy-impressions,
etherokrilno, and so on. Still, Gurdjieff has provided no clear-cut demonstration of the existence of this common ground of
mind and body, and so, from the point of view of contemporary experimental science, it is a solution of the mind/body
problem by fiat, a form of mysticism, in Reichs sense of the word (i.e., in the sense of either scientifically unverifiable or,
perhaps more precisely, as yet unverified).

Orgone Energy and the Mind/Body Problem

The demonstration of the existence of orgone energy, if correct, is the demonstration of this common third and removes
the concept that mind and body are rooted in a common functioning principle from the realm of the unverifiable. The results
of the bion experiments and of Experiment XX, when taken together, show that matter is condensed orgone energy or, to put
in Gurdjieffs terms, that what we call matter is dense energy. Reichs theory of cosmic superimposition expresses the idea
that matter forms from the merger of mass-free streams of orgone energy. On the most fundamental level, then, from the point
of view of Reichs discoveries, all there is, is orgone energy pulsating, which is to say that pulsating orgone energy is the
common functioning principle of all creation and so of mind and body.
Body comes from the merger of mass-free streams, its shape from the shape of the orgastic convulsion of the mass-free
streams. Within membranes of living material entities, mass-free orgone continues to pulsate and flow, tending toward
expansion. Out of the pulsation of orgone within membranes comes the orgone energy field, which has the property of being
able to make contact with orgone energy outside of itself, the function known as sensation. But this is mind: sensation is the
ground of consciousness.
Thus the same energy forms matter and has the property of sensation or consciousness. Primitive sensation, as found in
bions, is a function of orgone energy luminating or becoming excited within the membrane and outside of it as the orgone
energy field. When the field becomes excited and the excitation is transmitted into the body of the bion, the entity can be said
to sense or experience primitive consciousness. As an excitation effect, such primitive consciousness is like light: both occur
when orgone energy pulsates, vibrates, or luminates to certain specific degrees or at certain frequencies. Such
consciousness, therefore, is also like all other kinds of orgonotic vibrational products. Orgone energy becomes sound, odor,
touch, taste, light, sensation or primitive consciousness, etc., when it vibrates or luminates to various degrees. It becomes
sensation or perception when the mass-free orgone within a membrane luminates with the mass-free orgone outside it. The

luminescence effect of the inside and the outside is experienced by the organism as sensation or primitive consciousness.
If orgone luminates outside the body but no corresponding luminescence occurs within the body, sensation or perception
of the outside luminescence does not occur. From Reichs point of view, this would mean that there is an absence of
consciousness.20 Contact of orgone energy systems, then, as experienced within the membrane, or by the orgone energy
within a membrane, is consciousness. When the membrane contains structures originally formed from the function of the
mass-free energywhich we call organsthey take part in the contact process, specify it, and make it more complex.
Consciousness, then, is specified or made more complexand complex in a specific way, viz, in a way that the organs make
us more aware of more aspects of reality, which is to say that our consciousness becomes more evolved.
The evolution of more complex organisms corresponds with the evolution of more complex organs within membranes
and thus of consciousness. Bion consciousness becomes protozoan consciousness. Eventually plant consciousness of
various kinds develops, then animal consciousness of various kinds, and then human consciousness, the highest form of
consciousness we are aware of. From subjective experience, we know that differences exist in human consciousness; that it
can be more or less sleepy, more or less alert; more attuned to numbers or ideas, to colors or sounds, to animals, plants,
other humans, machines, etc. If Gurdjieff is correct, it can function with even greater awareness, with more consciousness,
than we realize. And if his concept of higher-being bodies is correct, we have the potential to develop organs that can pick
up finer impressions than the organs we know of, meaning that we have the potential to develop further in terms of
consciousness.
All of thisthe entire evolutionary scale from bions to humans and beyond, if there is a beyondis a function of the same
energy doing the same thing: pulsating and forming streams, merging and forming membranes, pulsating within
membranes, and tending toward expansion. Matter comes from this, and consciousness comes from this; growth comes from
this, and knowledge comes from this. The impetus toward knowledge, for Reich, is a function of the same processit
represents another form of growth via orgone energys tendency toward expansion. The wish to know, therefore, is an
expression of the orgone energy within our bodiesour selvesexpanding beyond itself (the membrane) to make contact
with the world outside of itself. It is, therefore, simply an extension or elaboration of orgone energys pulsational function and
its tendency to expand when contained within membranes. The wish to know thyself is the desire of the mass-free orgone
energy within our bodies to know itself.21

Orgone Energy and the Development of Higher-Being Bodies

If actual or literal higher-being bodies can form, the process of their formation would follow the same principles as the
formation of matter in the first place, of living organisms and organs, and of primitive and evolved consciousness. Higherbeing bodies, we can speculate, would be structures or crystallizations of highly excited, highly vivified, highly luminated
orgone energy. To call them bodies indicates that they have a structure and a membrane. To call them higher indicates
that they can take in impressions of a greater subtlety than the lower organs, that they can make contact with orgone energy
systems that luminate at a higher frequency than the systems contactable by the lower organs.
Until weve crystallized a higher-being body, we apparently cannot verify its existence. But on the understanding of the
nature of consciousness and its evolution provided by Reich, the nature, function, and existence of higher-being bodies
becomes theoretically comprehensible. To form one and so to put oneself in a position to verify the hypothesis would require
bringing ones orgone energy pulsation to the required level of excitation in such a way that the organ or body would
crystallize out of this highly luminated energy. This, presumably, is the function of the Second Conscious Shock.

Desire
The expansion of orgone energy within our bodies can be experienced in a variety of ways. The burning urge to know,
says Reich, can be experienced as a stretching out of our senses beyond the framework of our body, as if we were mere
tools of this yearning.22 Gurdjieff describes what sounds like a similar experience when he speaks of the wish to
understand, to evolve beyond the consciousness of waking-sleep.23 Such a yearning, on Reichs theory, is a function of an
excited, all-encompassing lumination of the mass-free orgone energy within. The wish itself is an expression, on a psychic
level, of the energys expansion out of the membrane toward the world.
Every desire, not just this intense yearning to know, is an expression of the expansion of orgone energy within the
membrane. The wish to understand, to consciously evolve, then, at its root is no different from the movements of an amoeba,
the emergence of a blade of grass from the ground, the turning of a leaf toward the sun, the interest of a cat in the
movements of a mouse, the curiosity of an infant, the fascination of a child with its toys, the intense desire of an adolescent to
be with a person of the opposite sex, the desire of a householder to provide for his or her family, the interest of parents in
their children, etc. Even such desire as the wish to become rich or famous, to dominate others or to be dominated, and so on
are functions of energy expansion, although in these cases, the desires are mixed blessings, products of orgonotic
expansion as it mixes with armoring.
Differences among desires are a function of a number of factors. First, there is organ development or, in Gurdjieffs terms,
development of brain systems. Each organ, each brain, has, in a manner of speaking, its own desires or interests, which are
defined in terms of the impressions it takes in and the manifestations it expresses.24 For this reason, one-brained beings
(protozoa, worms, plants, etc.), two brained beings (animals), and three-brained beings have different desires. Within

organisms higher on the evolutionary scale are included desires of the lower or more primitive brains along with those of the
higher or more evolved brains.
A second factor is maturity. Infant three-brained beings differ in their desires from adolescent three-brained beings and
adult three-brained beings. These two factors, organ development and maturity, are aspects of the same process, evolution
of consciousness. A third factor, armoring, however, is not. Suppression of core impulses and emotions that leads to chronic
armoring functionally keeps us immature. It prevents the natural evolution of desire by keeping infantile and childhood
desires buried in the character structure of the adult. Armored, we remain infants and children in the bodies of adults. What is
adult in us, what the adult in us desires, is colored by what the infant and child was denied and so continues to crave.
What are the desires of mature human beings? As Gurdjieff would say, on the level of waking-sleeping humanity, in the
Tower of Babel, everyone has his or her own idea, and no one can prove that his or her view is correct to anyone else, as
with desire, so with morality, with concepts of beauty, with values in general. In waking-sleep, we have different ideas
concerning the nature of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, maturity, and so on, because, as Plato would say, we havent
ascended to the Realm of Ideas, where direct contact with truth can be made and knowledge gained. The Hindu/Yoga
tradition indicates that maturity of desire is exhibited in the desire for liberation and that this desire evolves naturally if the
person is allowed to satisfy all infantile, childhood, adolescent, and adult desires without inhibition,25 a philosophy that most
Indians, like most other people, no doubt have trouble living up to.
The Buddhists say that maturity of desire is exhibited in the extinguishing of desire, or in the desire for nirvana; some
mystical Jews in the desire for cleaving or merger with Ein Sof;26 esoteric Christians in the desire to be as Christ. Esotericism
generally says that maturity of desire is exhibited in the desire to evolve in consciousness; Gurdjieff implies that it is
exhibited in the desire to understand, to develop higher-being bodies, and to help God. Reich says that the mature human
being desires love, work, and knowledge. Each of us, I suppose, has to try and figure out what it means for ourselves. If
Reich and Gurdjieff are correct, the best approach to begin to discover what maturity brings in terms of desire is to begin a
process of buffer or armor dissolution: free the bound, immature desires; vent them in safety; and then watch closely and
enjoy as the free essence pulses its way toward maturity.

Knowledge, Being, and Understanding

For Gurdjieff, evolution of consciousness involves the unification of the body, the heart, and the mind, or, in other terms,
unification of knowledge and being. The merger of knowledge and being, for him, forms the specific function that is said to
evolve when consciousness evolves: the understanding.27
Knowledge and being, by themselves, are conceived of as narrower functions than understanding, which is seen as a
function of all the centers in their synergistic interaction and relation. The intellect, says Gurdjieff, for example, may know
something, but understanding of what it knows occurs only when what is known is sensed and felt as well, i.e., when we can
be it. The intellect may also be able to carry out a function and so have being or capacity with regard to that function (such as
the capacity to work through a mathematical equation), but this does not mean that the individual as a whole understands
the function.
This distinction helps Gurdjieff transmit the idea that work on all centers is necessary for the evolution of consciousness.
Some prefer to gather knowledge, some to develop capacities or being. If we wish to evolve, however, those of us who
prefer gathering knowledge should develop capacities (with respect to that knowledge), and those who prefer to develop
capacities should study or gather knowledge as well. When knowledge gets too far ahead of being or being too far ahead of
knowledge, says Gurdjieff, the evolution of consciousness reaches a plateau (interval) and must wait for a shock from the
other side.
Reich speaks of the yearning to know, but by this term he does not mean mere intellectual knowledge. He speaks of it in
terms of the stretching out of the senses, by which he means all the sensesthe physical senses, emotional sense, and
intellectual sense. He, as well as Gurdjieff, understood the difference between knowledge and understanding (even if he did
not always use the terms in the same way). He was always concerned to comprehend intellectually what he could carry out
clinically or experimentally and to develop capacities regarding the knowledge he gained, such as helping patients become
orgastically potent and dissolving DOR clouds via his knowledge of atmospheric orgone energy functions. This is to say that
Reich sought understanding (in Gurdjieffs terms): to know what he could do and to do what he knew.
From Reichs and Gurdjieffs point of view, to focus on development of knowledge at the expense of being or on being at
the expense of knowledge, or to focus on development of one center or function and to ignore the others, is expressive of a
divided consciousness. This is precisely what is tacitly or openly called for by contemporary science, philosophy, and
religion, however. Scientists and philosophers are trained to develop the intellect and value knowledge; religion focuses on
practices and beliefs. Each is one-sided, and from Gurdjieffs and Reichs points of view, such one-sidedness does not lead
to evolution of consciousness.
As armored organisms, it is natural that we would tend to develop forms of science and philosophy that are devoid of
emotion and sensation, which focus on the intellect and not on the whole, and religions that discourage investigation and
sensuality. Because we are divided by the armor, our sensations, emotions, and thoughts are separated and relatively
unrelated to one another. Ones outlook, of course, mirrors ones impressions; we can look only for what we conceive can be
seen. When our thoughts are cut off from our emotions, our emotions from our sensations, and when our everyday

experience is divided from our scientific theories, we have no way of comprehending the whole of life under one unified
perspective.
For this reason, for example, a pediatrician can have children of her own that react hyperactively when served an excess
amount of sugar and a husband who notices this and stops serving it to them, and yet the pediatrician can continue to deny
that diet or nutrition has anything to do with hyperactivity because she is not aware of any research that proves it.28 A priest,
to take another example, can deny himself sexual gratification, develop cancer of the prostate, and suffer prolonged bouts of
depression and yet continue to advise his parishioners against natural genitalityand our example could continue with the
physicians who examined him, failing to connect his shriveled prostate with lack of sexual activity.29
The divisions that currently prevail in the sciences, philosophy, and religion appear chaotic when viewed from the
perspective of orgonomic functionalism and Gurdjieffs teachings. From the point of view of the Ray of Creation, for example,
such divisions are expressions of denser being, of a lower level of consciousness than would exist if the sciences,
philosophy, and religion were characterized by relatedness. As one climbs up the Ray, up Jacobs Ladder, if you will, one
begins to see relatedness as opposed to division, that all fields of inquiry study the same thing from different sides and that
the impressions of each necessarily reflect on the others.
Gurdjieff called his perspective objective science on the one hand and esoteric religion on the other,3 0 ways of
speaking expressive of an understanding that when inquiry involves the whole organism, specific disciplines merge.
Science becomes religious and artistic, religion becomes artistic and scientific, philosophy includes impressions of
sensation and emotion, art transmits objective knowledge.31 If this implies that certain distinctive traits are lost by the
individual disciplines, it is no different than what happens when a person awakens from the sleep of false personality. Lost
are the manifestations associated with the armor; gained is an appreciation of the essential.
This is not to say that there is no need for different areas of inquiry. Impressions come in different forms, in different
energetic densities, and require various media for transmission. There is a need to transmit understanding through ritual,
pictorial art, sculpture, functional technique, dance, music, and so on, as well as through words and experimentation. As one
twentieth-century philosopher puts it, impressions cannot be transmitted via assertion alone. Active and exhibitive forms of
transmission are just as important.32
Gurdjieffs system provides a unified perspective from which to view all of reality. The discovery of orgone energy does
the same. As a discovery that provides a perspective that brings the sciences, religion, philosophy, art, mechanics, etc.,
under one general framework, the discovery of orgone energy is itself a step forward in the evolution of human
consciousness.33 Should we learn from Reich and Gurdjieff, we will no longer view the universe as if it exists in unrelated
pieces such as emotions vs. sensations vs. thoughts vs. physical forces, minds vs. bodies, astronomical phenomena vs.
cellular phenomena, nature vs. nurture, science vs. religion, facts vs. values, men vs. women, children vs. adults, the needs
of the rich vs. the needs of the poor, and so on.
Though this perspective is highly general, it is not merely mathematical, metaphysical, or abstract. We cannot understand
it simply with the intellect; to understand it requires more of us than merely following ideas. We need to use the full
compliment of the senses and the emotions as well. To understand reality from this perspective, in other words, is to know
the concepts, to be open to the mass-free orgone energy flow and pulsation within our bodies, and to live our lives in
accordance with our knowledge: knowledge plus being equals understanding. To understand reality from this perspective
means making contact with impressions of all kinds and with beings on the levels of existence we can reach. It means loving
them, luminating with them, something we can do because we all are made of the same stuff.

Understanding: Ancient and Modern

In Beelzebubs Tales, it is said that contemporary humans are further from a unified perspective than the ancients,3 4 for
the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer have continued to build, burying essence and conscience more and more
deeply beneath the crust of vices. We, of course, think we are more evolved, that we have made progress. We think of
ancient humans as savages. According to Gurdjieff, however, we have lost touch with the function of knowledge, which he
believes was better understood in the past. The buildup of the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer (so to speak) has led
to a perverse comprehension of the function of philosophy (to clarify concepts as opposed to guiding the evolution of
consciousness), religion (to tell us what to do as opposed to guiding us to the higher emotional feeling of conscience),
science (to develop new techniques to make life easiersuch as the American commode, as Gurdjieff calls our toilet,
which allows us to read our newspapers while defecating but leads to the evolution of hemorrhoidsas opposed to gaining
objective knowledge of reality), and art (to help pass the time pleasantly or to give us status and make us rich, as opposed to
transmitting objective knowledge exhibitively for the purpose of aiding the evolution of consciousness).
The advent of easily accessible media, beginning with the printing press, on Gurdjieffs view, has, in certain respects,
made things worse. For it has multiplied the number of impressions of waking-sleeping humans constantly available to us,
the A influences that put us to sleep. The clang and clash of A influences drown out the more subtle B (mixed influences of
conscious and sleeping humanity) and C (influences of awakened beings) influences, with the general effect being a
manifold increase in the number of low-level impressions, which feed false personality and not essence. This leads to a
further confusion of tongues. We are confused because what is essential is left out, and yet deep down in our core we know
this, although we cannot articulate it to ourselves and feel foolish when we recognize it, however subliminally.
On the other hand, as Gurdjieff points out in his remarks concerning the increased possibility of humans who live in

America to come in contact with genuine knowledge,35 modern life affords one the opportunity to come in contact with C
influences (as they are sown in life as B influences) more easily than ever. Products of conscious, working individuals can
be purchased at the local bookstore, one can travel to view other such products (architecture, for example), and they can be
found in museums, in theaters. The problem, of course, is to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff, not an easy task at
any time but made more difficult given the current proliferation of human products of all kinds.
Difficult as this might be, it is not as if we have no means of discriminating the false from the true. There is the natural
pulsation of orgone energy, the direct contact we can make via the first sense (our orgone energy atmosphere) and the other
senses and organs when the orgone within us pulses and flows freely. It tells us when the sun has risen, when it is raining,
when we are about to be run over by a car, when we are loved, when we are hated, and it can help us understand when we
are being lied to or being told the truth. To get into position to be able to use this measure of truth is to be in a process of
armor dissolution, and to help our children reach such a position is to bring them up in such a way that chronic armoring
does not develop.
Reich, like Gurdjieff, although from a different perspective, came to the conclusion that contemporary humanity is in many
ways more out of touch with reality than our ancestors. For Reich, the primitive animistic view of reality was closer to a
natural understanding than either a mystical or mechanistic point of view.36 Mysticism, for Reich, although in touch with the
livingness of reality, personifies and idealizes it. In Gurdjieffs terms, mysticism, as Reich means it, represents an
overemphasis on the emotional center. Mechanistic thinking, on the other hand, represents, in Gurdjieffs terminology, an
overemphasis on the formatory apparatus, or the moving part of the intellect.
Both mysticism and mechanical thinking, for Reich, represent distorted ways of comprehending reality and are rooted in
the chronic armoring of the human animal. The animistic view, on the other hand, for Reich, is the forerunner of functional
thinking, a form of thinking based on direct contact with and comprehension of orgone energy functions.37 When viewed
animistically, Mother Earth is alive as are her children, the wind, the waters, the land, plants, animals, people, etc., just as are
the sun, the moon, and the heavenly bodies in general. This view, for Reich, expresses contactfulness with the life force
absent in mechanical perspectives and personified or idealized in mysticism (as, for example, in the concept of one remote
divinity). In this sense, animism is truer for it represents a primitive awareness of the reality of orgone energy functions. The
earth and her children are functions of living energy, and the animistic perspective is based on impressions of this fact.

Armor and Self-Consciousness

What is the original cause of our impressions having lost their vivifyingness (Gurdjieffs term) to the extent that, as
mechanists, we view the universe as the result of a giant explosion and on the model of an automobile manufacturing plant
(and its living beings as chemical factories and computation machines) or, as mystics, as the creation of a Mr. God who
watches our every move, is privy to our thoughts, and will save only those who see Him as we do? Why do we view the
concept of a life force as either a primitive notion believed in only by savages or a mystic presence unconnected to bodily
functions? What, in other words, is the original cause of chronic armoring, of the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer?
In Cosmic Superimposition, Reich attempts to trace the roots of the formation of armoring from a more general or cosmic
perspective than he did in his earlier work, The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality. Before their was life, says Reich, there
were streams of orgone energy within the cosmic orgone energy ocean.38 When climactic conditions permitted, life
appeared, most likely as primitive plasmatic flakes like those produced in Experiment XX. From these flakes, single-celled
organisms developed according to the laws of orgonotic attraction and superimposition, but now with a membrane, a closed
system of orgone energy flow. This is biogenesis, the formation of specifically biologically alive organisms.
At some point, the orgone within developed further and became able to perceive its own flowit developed orgonotic
sensation (primitive consciousness). Over eons, organisms became more and more complex as the orgone contained within
the membrane continued to stretch and grow, developing more and more elaborate structures. On the principle that
orgonotic functioning precedes material structurethat structure represents mass-free functioning in frozen formthe
complex organs such as the brain formed out of the functioning of mass-free energy along the lines that the structure
eventually took. Later the complex orgone energy system known as Homo sapiens began to think about its own functioning.
This thinking apparently led to impressions that frightened them and led to them involuntarily turning against themselves.39
Armor developed as a protection against their own frightening sensations.
Earlier, Reich had developed a theory based on the takeover of sex-positive matrifocal culture by repressive patrifocal
culture.40 Whatever the reason, human beings began interfering with their own energy metabolism, and armor formed. This
interference has undoubtedly led to a terror of the impulses, sensations, emotions, and thoughts caused by freely pulsating
orgone energy in our bodiesa terror, in other words, of ourselves.41

Notes
1. Maurice Nicoll, Living Time (London: Watkins, 1976), p. 22.
2.

As in Yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, Hasidism, Gnostic Christianity, Sufism, Transcendental Philosophy, The Gurdjieff Work,
etc., I do not mean to imply that each of these ideas is equivalent but only that a common direction is involved.

3. See, for example, Richard Wilhelm (trans.), The Secret of the Golden Flower (New York: Causeway Books, 1975).
4. Lucien Stryk (ed.), The World of the Buddha (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 45-6.
5. See, for example, Zev ben Shimon Halevi, Adam and the Kabbalistic Tree (New York: Weiser, 1974).
6. An idea found, for example, in Judaism.
7. BT, pp. 1105-7.
8. ISM, p. 94.
9. BT, pp. 52, 136, 749.
10. See EGD, passim.
11. See, for example, BT, pp. 510-12; VFRW, pp. 93, 211, 242-3.
12. Plato, The Republic, op. cit.
13. Plotinus, The Enneads, op. cit.
14.

Descartes, Meditations; Gilbert Ryle, The Ghost in the Machine, from The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinsons
University Library, 1949), chapter 1. Both are found in Melvin Rader (ed.), The Enduring Questions, 4th ed. (New York:
Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1980), pp. 197-227.

15.

Said by the president of the American Psychological Association as of January 13, 1983, and heard over WWDB-FM,
Philadelphia, on a regular newscast.

16. See Robert Pollie, The Educated Nervous System, in Science News, vol. 123, no. 5 (January 29, 1983): pp. 74-5.
17.

See, for example, Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Boulder, Colorado: Shambala, 1975); Gary Zukov, The Dancing
Wu Li Masters (New York: William Morrow, 1979).

18. As with Berkeley, Shopenhauer, and others.

19. VFRW, pp. 205-9.
20.

Technically speaking, at least from the perspective of Gurdjieffs teachings, we should say extremely dense
consciousness exists. For Reich, however, consciousness means experience, and experience is a product of the
movement of mass-free orgone energy within membranes, i.e., of a biologically alive organism.

21. CS, p. 279.

22. Ibid., p. 286.
23. TS, p. 2ff.
24. VFRW, p. 129; C, pp. 408ff.
25. Houston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 14-89.
26. See David S. Ariel, The Mystic Quest (New York: Schocken, 1988), pp. 140, 142, 178, 191-4, and passim.
27. ISM, pp. 67-8. Nicoll says, A man is his understanding (C, p. 407).
28. An example similar to this was reported by Gary Null over WBAI-FM, New York City, on January 24, 1983.
29.

Recent research into prostate cancer indicates that the connection between it and sexual abstinence or illness is
becoming noticed by the research and medical community. See, for example, Science News, vol. 121, p. 215.

3 0 . ISM, p. 102. He used the expression esoteric Christianity when speaking of the function of the New Testament. See
Nicolls The New Man.
31. BT, pp. 449-523; VFRW, pp. 180-2.
32. Justus Buchler, Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), passim.
33. CS, p. 286.
34. BT, pp. 85-121, 1046-1213.
35. BT, pp. 918-1054.
36. CS, pp. 286-7.
37. Ibid., pp. 87ff, 287.

38. Ibid., p. 291ff.

39. Ibid., p. 293.
40. ICSM.
41. CS, 294.

CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
The Concept of Biopathy

We, like

everything else, pulse, or pulsatein every part, every organ, muscle, tissue, and cell. In our sexual
functioning, we can experience a complete pulsation of our entire body in one unified movement. But an impediment to this
pulsation has been created, armoring, and when the natural pulsation of our organism is impeded, illness can develop. This
is Reichs concept of biopathy: a disease process caused by a basic dysfunction in the autonomic life apparatus, in the
overall pulsation of the organism.1
Prior to Reich, as we have seen, Breuer and Freud had believed that sexual dysfunction causes emotional illness. Freud
went further and indicated that he believed a relationship existed between sexual disturbances and certain physical
problems such as cardiac malfunction, migraines, and diabetes.
Over time, Reichs comprehension of the relationship between sexual dysfunction and physical diseases evolved. First of
all, he came to understand that a disturbance in the capacity for full charge and discharge in the orgasm, whether or not
accompanied by other symptoms, is a disease in itself, namely, orgastic impotence, and that it leads to other diseases.
From this understanding came his concept of biopathy, where because of a lack of complete pulsation, disturbances occur
that result in distortions in the natural modes of expression and functioning of the organism.2 In this respect, neurotic and
psychotic symptoms are expressions of a biopathic process.
From Reichs point of view, armor prevents complete sexual gratification, for it can be enjoyed only when we are capable
of the complete release of sexually excited energy in a full orgasm. Armoring prevents the involuntary muscular convulsions,
thus preventing full orgasm, complete release of energy and gratification. But armor has other consequences. Chronic, longterm constriction of the chest, for example, though originally formed as a way of inhibiting certain impulses and emotions,
puts excess pressure on the cardiovascular system and can lead to cardiovascular disease. Armoring in the upper segments
can lead to chronic headaches, neck problems, the tendency to suffer from throat infections, ocular difficulties, and so on.
Biopathies, Reich found, take different forms depending on where and on how severe the armoring is. Severe armoring in
the ocular segment, for example, on Reichs analysis, can be the most significant factor in the development of the biopathy
known as schizophrenia,3 while other forms of armoring can lead to the carcinomatous shrinking biopathy (cancer), angina
pectoris, asthma, cardiovascular hypertension, anxiety neurosis, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chorea, chronic alcoholism,
and so on.4 In the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on Reichs research into one of these biopathies, the cancer
biopathy, for examination of this biopathy most clearly reveals the connection between sexuality and the direction one can
go in lifein Gurdjieffs terms, up the Ray of Creation in an evolutionary direction or down it in an involutionary direction,
i.e., on one hand, toward unity, toward the One, or on the other, toward chaos, toward the moon.

Bions and T-bodies in Tissue from Cancer Patients

Reichs knowledge that armored people inhibit their breathing, along with experiments conducted by other researchers
that had determined that cancer cells thrive in an underoxygenated environment (and his desire to deepen his
understanding of life functions in general), led him to begin laboratory investigation of the cancer process. He began his
study with samples of blood, excreta, and tissue from cancer patients and studied them microscopically.5 The samples from
cancer patients, says Reich, revealed the existence of a specific kind of cell that was not found in samples taken from
healthy humans and healthy mice, cells he eventually identified as a type of bion. Furthermore, in a sample of lung sputum
of a cancer patient, Reich found amoebalike organisms, which, he says, puzzled him, for he wondered how they had gotten
into the lung. He had previously attempted to cultivate such organisms from the air but had been unsuccessful; thus he
doubted the amoeba had come from air infection and hypothesized that they may have developed in the lung itself.6 He had
earlier observed protozoa develop from bions that had emerged from disintegrated matter; thus he knew that protozoa can
develop from disintegrated material.7
Also puzzling, says Reich, were observations that the same lung tissue when observed under a magnification of from
2000x to 4000x revealed a number of lancet-shaped organisms undetected at lower magnifications, organisms that
resembled cells Reich had previously cultivated from degenerating tissue, blood, putrescent protein, and charcoal bion
preparations. Reich referred to these cells as T-bodies, after the German word for death (todes) since they appeared to
form only when tissue degenerated.8
Such observations led Reich to consider the possibility that a process of tissue disintegration and putrefication was
occurring in the lung tissue of the cancer patient.9 He attempted to cultivate T-bodies and the type of bion found in the
cancer-cell preparations from the air but could not. He also found that such organisms could not be found in healthy tissue,
indicating that they had not originated from the air but that their formation was somehow linked to the cancer process.
Two questions that Reich says he could not answer at this time but which served to focus his thinking were (1) the
relationship between formation of these cells and oxygen deprivation and (2) the relationship of these cells and tissue

disintegration to orgone energy deprivation.

Reich had previously hypothesized that bions carry orgone energy, that they consist of a membrane, fluid content, and a
quantum of orgone energy, which is why they appeared blue in color and emitted a field.10 Finding them in the lung tissue of
a cancer patient indicated that a relationship may exist between tissue degeneration and orgone energy, but, at this time, he
says he could not say what it was. Furthermore, the bions appeared to have a paralyzing effect on the T-bodies, an effect
Reich had witnessed earlier when both types of cells had been cultivated from earth and coal. He had then named the bions
PA bions due to this observed effect, and he now saw the same bions in the lung tissue of a cancer patient.

Healthy and Cancerous Tissue Compared

Comparison of healthy tissue with cancerous tissue, says Reich, revealed significant differences. Healthy tissue showed
no vesicular formationno bions, no T-bodies, no protozoa under microscopic examination. Cancerous tissue, on the other
hand, exhibited vesicular disintegration into bions, specifically the PA bions and T-bodies.
Comparison of healthy and cancerous cells also showed significant differences. Healthy cells, he says, showed inner
breakdown into a finely striated or unstructured bluish protoplasm. Cancerous cells showed deep-blue bionous vesicles, the
PA bions, or extremely small black cells, the T-bodies.
Reich also boiled cells in potassium chloride solution and found that upon boiling, the healthy cells disintegrated into
large blue bions only, whereas the cancer cells disintegrated into T-bodies. Since T-bodies were known to result solely from
disintegrating matter, this finding was further evidence that the cancer process involves disintegration of tissues and cells.11

Cancer Cells from Disintegrating Tissue

Reich had yet to determine if cancer cells develop from disintegrating tissue. He says that he painstakingly studied the
process of tissue disintegration, studies that resulted in the following observations: the PA bions formed from the
disintegrating tissue began to organize themselves, join together just as bions cultivated from plant and earth sources had in
formation of protozoa. He now witnessed the same phenomenon, but in this case with bions formed from disintegrating
human tissue.
Reich says that by this time, he was familiar with various kinds of cells, including cancer cells, thus was able to recognize
a cancer cell when he saw one. What he now observed as he studied the bions joining together to form the amoeboid
protozoa was revolutionary in its implications: these protozoa were nothing other than cancer cells themselves.12 Reich, in
other words, witnessed cancer cells forming from the bions that had formed from the disintegrating tissue of cancer patients.

Mitosis as an Orgone Energy Discharge Function

The question remained for Reich as to why the tissue of the cancer patients began to disintegrate in the first place. An
important clue, he says, came from results of research, not conducted by him, that revealed that cancer tissue produces
lactic acid and excess carbon dioxide, indicating that cancer tissue is oxygen deprived.13 Reich, as we have seen, knew that
armored organisms suffer from an inhibition of respiration. He did not as yet understand how chronic armoring is related to
oxygen deprivation and tissue disintegration. The mere fact that armored organisms dont breathe fully was an indication,
however, that their tissues and cells probably did not receive an adequate amount of oxygen.
To learn more about the metabolism of cells, Reich studied the literature concerning cell functions and eventually
developed a theory of cell functioning that incorporated his concept of orgone energy. Each cell of the body, Reich
theorized, with its nucleus, plasm, membrane, and orgone energy content, functions as a complete orgonotic system (a
microcosm). The nucleus, on this model, functions as the vegetative center in the way the vegetative ganglia and autonomic
nervous system functions in the person as a wholein Gurdjieffs terms, as a center or brain.
All prior research into the relationship between the nucleus and plasm of cells, Reich thought, indicated that the nucleus
is stronger energetically than the plasm. Researchers had found, for example, that mitosis, or cell division, begins with
division of the nucleus and that just prior to division the nucleus becomes tension filled. It then divides, dividing the cell as a
whole and releasing the tension.14 The researchers observed that after division, the daughter cell was smaller than the
parent but eventually reached a similar size before dividing itself. What grew first in the daughter cell was the plasm, the
material outside of and surrounding the nucleus, and just before dividing, the nucleus grew rapidly, nearly doubling in size.
Reich theorized that the nucleus divides, and then the cell, when the nucleus reaches the point of maximum orgone
energy charge. Division, in such cases, he hypothesized, is a function of orgone energy discharge. Mitotic cells, in other
words, discharge the excess orgone energy developed within the nucleus by dividing into two cells.
Observation, says Reich, showed that in the daughter cell, the plasm has the greater charge. It is much larger and grows
more quickly than the nucleus. As the cell matures, however, the balance of charge shifts to the nucleus. This occurs, on
Reichs theory of orgonotic potential, as the nucleus draws off or absorbs orgone energy from the plasm, which had
absorbed it from food and respiration.15
Growth of the cell as a whole could be explained as a function of absorption of orgone energy into the cell or charging at
a rate far greater than dischargethere would be periodic discharge, accounting for the cells activity and orgone energy
fieldbut during the growth period, charge would exceed discharge.16 Eventually, on Reichs theory, an excess amount of
orgone energy would exist in the nucleus, leading to the necessity for discharge in division. Such a discharge, Reich

hypothesized, occurs due to a cellular orgastic convulsion, leading, with mitotic cells, to division.

The Orgasm Function and Cellular Disintegration

Reich hypothesized that the bodys cells continuously or periodically absorb energy from food and respiration and
require periodic discharge of excess orgone energy, energy that functions as the cells waste. Just as with individual cells,
our bodies discharge energy in activities of all kinds as, for example, the energy field and as, most totally and significantly
with regard to the issue at hand, in the orgasm. In fact, Reich came to believe, it is the orgasm function per se that serves to
release excess cellular energy that if not released can lead to the need for cellular division.
With regard to the bodys cells, however, when new tissue is not being added, the cells do not normally divide during the
discharge process. Excess cellular energy, Reich hypothesized, is released in such cases by the body as a whole via the
orgasm.17 Reich could now formulate the function of the orgasm as follows: the orgasm functions to release excess cellular
energy from the bodys cells.
Reich says that when the nuclei of the bodys cells reach the point of full charge, the body as a whole is ready for
discharge, a state the organism subjectively experiences as sexual readiness. When the excess energy is fully released in
the orgastic convulsion, the organism experiences sexual gratification, a state in which there is no more excess orgone
energy within the organism to become excited. This theory accounts for Reichs observations to the effect that orgastically
potent individuals cannot become sexually excited directly after a gratifying orgastic experience.
If the organism fails to discharge the excess cellular energy, the cells remain overcharged. Overcharged cells, however,
on Reichs account, by definition, remain tense, just like an overfull bladder. Reich hypothesized that in such cases,
discharge occurs in cellular mitosis or division. The nuclei of the cells, in other words, take over the function of discharge
from the total organism. But when cells in the human body begin to divide and subdivide abnormallythat is, apart from
growth of new tissuethe tissue of which the cells are the constituents begins to disintegrate.18

Orgone Energy Charge and Tissue Disintegration

It seemed to Reich that orgonotically weak tissue disintegrated into the bions that organized to form the cancer cell, but
he did not as yet know how to explain it. Reich says that an important clue came from experiments he had conducted earlier
with grass infusions in which older autumnal grass had yielded protozoa abundantly and easily whereas fresh young grass
had rarely yielded protozoa.19 He also had found that the cancer cell develops easily from disintegration of aging or impaired
animal tissue but not from fresh young tissue.
He suspected that the reason for this had to do with the tissues capacity to become fully charged orgonotically, but he
says he needed more evidence. Earlier, he had observed a preparation of cancer tissue and had noticed that after it had
stood for a few months, it had developed a green blue coloration and had emitted a strong amonialike, putrid odor.
Examined microscopically, the preparation had revealed the T-bacilli.[3] He then had injected T-bacilli into mice and found
that they had quickly died.20 Other mice injected with large strongly pulsating blue bions remained healthy. A third group
were injected with both cells, and they, too, had remained healthy.
It seemed likely to Reich that the healthy tissue had resisted disintegration due to its capacity to absorb a strong orgone
energy charge. After he had developed an objective test for orgonotic chargelevel of luminescence via the
fluorophotometerhe tested blue bions and T-bacilli and determined that the blue bions carried orgone energy and that the
T-bacilli lacked orgonotic charge.21 Reich could now explain why the mice injected with blue bions and T-bacilli had not died
from the T-bacilli: the blue bions had a paralyzing and killing effect on the T-bacilli, which is why they were called PA-bions.
The strongly pulsating bions paralyzed and killed the T-bacilli, Reich hypothesized, due to their strong orgonotic charge.

Formation of Cancer Cells

Reich had also observed that cancer cells apparently damaged healthy tissue surrounding the disintegrating tissue from
which they had formed. He now suspected that this might be due to T-bacilli. Furthermore, he had observed cancer cells
disintegrating into the T-bacilli. But when he inoculated a sterile egg medium with T-bacilli, he found that blue bions grew in
it along with more T-bacilli, an indication that the T-bacilli had apparently stimulated the protein substance of the egg to
produce bions.22
The blood of mice previously injected with a mild dosage of T-bacilli and that had not died from the injection had
revealed, upon examination, says Reich, the presence of blue bions along with more T-bacilli. He had theorized at the time
that the mice had not died because the blue bions had killed the T-bacilli before they could destroy the animals. The results
of such experiments led Reich to the hypothesis that cells disintegrate into blue bions when in the presence of T-bacilli as a
defense against them.23
T-bacilli, Reich concluded, stimulate bion formation in weakened tissue near tissue that had originally disintegrated into
T-bacilli. Normal but weakened cells disintegrate into bions as a defense against the attack of the T-bacilli, and these bions
then organize or join together to form the clublike amoeboid cells with a membrane identified as the cancer cell.24

Healthy and Cancerous Organisms and the Orgasm

What is the difference between the healthy and cancerous organism? Two of Reichs findings are relevant here: T-bacilli
were eventually cultivated from the blood of healthy individuals as well as from that of cancer patients, and cancer cells were

found to disintegrate into T-bacilli.25 Reich could then theorize that within the organism, a constant process of putrefaction
and regeneration takes place. T-bacilli form naturally from aging tissue as it rots and disintegrates, but this leads to cancer
only when the T-bacilli become abundant in the blood. The healthy organism is able to eliminate them; they are not allowed
the opportunity to damage other tissue, and the tissue does not break down into the bions that organize into the cancer cell.
When the tissue is weak, however, and T-bacilli become abundant, they cannot be effectively eliminated, and their
presence causes surrounding tissue to disintegrate, i.e., to produce blue bions in defense. From these bions, the cancer
cells form. The healthy organism differs from the cancerous one, then, in its ability to eliminate T-bacilli and to the degree the
tissue and blood cells tend toward disintegration into T-bacilli.26
The tendency toward tissue disintegration, on Reichs theory, is a direct result of the failure of the organism to fully
discharge excess cellular energy. When the excess cellular energy is not fully discharged, the cells discharge the energy by
dividing, and the tissue disintegrates into T-bacilli and bions. The T-bacilli then attack other weakened tissueweakened
also because of lack of full orgone energy dischargeand this tissue breaks down further. The bions stimulated by the
presence of the T-bacilli organize to form cancer cells. But since full discharge of excess cellular energy is the function of the
orgasm, the tendency toward tissue disintegration and subsequent formation of the cancer cell is a result of orgastic
impotence.

T-bacilli Poisoning
Reich learned that when more T-bacilli are present, more bions tend to be produced as a defense, and when more bions
are present, they tend to organize into cancer cells and other protozoa. He observed that cancer cells also break down into
T-bacilli so that by the time a person has a tumor, which consists of great numbers of cancer cells, numerous T-bacilli are
constantly being formed from the continued breakdown of weakened tissue and disintegration of the cancer cells
themselves. At this point, says Reich, the organism is deeply poisoned by great numbers of T-bacilli that spread throughout
the organism via the blood and lymph systems.
Dissection of cancerous mice confirmed this, says Reich, for the blood and lymph systems of these mice were found to be
clogged by T-bacilli. They also had developed enlarged livers and spleens, apparently due to the necessity to eliminate the
poison. Reich came to believe that the mice had died from what he called T-intoxicationthe clogging of the blood and
lymph systems with T-bacilli and the effects of this clogging on the organs of elimination rather than from the tumors
themselves.27

Orgone Energys Effects on Cancer

Reich was now coming closer to a more complete understanding of the relationship of orgone energy to the cancer
process. He had seen cancer cells destroyed by what he believed were highly charged bions and had actually observed the
bions penetrate masses of cancer cells and destroy their structure.28 He had also seen bions kill and paralyze T-bacilli. But
he still was not clear about what this meant.
Earlier we discussed the discovery of orgone energy from experiments with sand bion cultures, but it was actually after
the observations mentioned above that this discovery was made. Reich now put the two discoveries together to test for the
possibility that the energy radiating from the sand bions was the same that appeared to exist in the blue PA bions that had a
paralyzing and killing effect on the T-bodies.
Various experiments showed that the sand bion cultures could kill T-bacilli via their radiation,2 9 or from a distance. If his
hypothesis that the sand bions radiated orgone energy was correct, this indicated that orgone energy as emitted by various
kinds of bions could interfere with the cancer process by killing the T-bacilli, which were stimulants to tissue degeneration
and cancer-cell formation. If this were the case, Reich wanted to be able to use orgone energy to fight cancer in humans.
Before this could be practicable, however, he had to know how orgone energy could be brought to the tissues and cells of
the body.

How Orgone Energy Charges the Bodys Tissues

In his attempt to discover how orgone energy could be brought to the tissues, Reich conducted a series of experiments in
which he injected cancerous mice with highly charged bions. After a great deal of trial and error, he says that he was able to
observe that orgone energy is brought to the bodys cells via the blood. He observed the highly charged bions charge the
red blood cells, and the red blood cells then charge the bodys cells, thus charging the tissues.
The charging process, Reich found, occurred not via gross ingestion of matter but via lumination and attraction of orgone
energy fields.30 When orgone energy vesicles were mixed with diluted blood, the blood corpuscles slowly gathered around a
larger bion. Where contact was not made physically but where a distance measured as approximately.5 to 1 micron
separated them, a strongly radiating bridge was observed to form between the bion and the blood cells. The blood cells in
contact via the radiating bridge with the bions were observed to reflect light more strongly, and their blue color became more
intense as they became larger, grew tauter, and pulsated in a lively manner. No matter was observed to move from the bion
to the blood cellsthere was no observable material transferyet the cells became charged, an indication that the energy
transfer was a function of mutual excitation of orgone energy fields.
This finding, fascinating enough on a cellular scale, had profound consequences for Reichs understanding of life on a
human scale as well, for it enabled him to pursue research in which he came to understand human sexual attraction, too, as

mutual excitation of orgone energy fields. (This discovery is also central to my understanding of the evolution of
consciousness in Gurdjieffs sense, in that it is via mutual excitation of orgone energy fields, I hypothesize, that the energy
needed to form a Higher Emotional Body is created. This is discussed further in parts VI and VII.)

Use of the Accumulator in Cancer

After the discovery of atmospheric orgone energy, Reich considered the possibility that the cancer process might be
affected by orgone energy directly absorbed from the atmosphere via an Orgone Energy Accumulator. He tested the
hypothesis with cancer mice, obtaining, he says, positive results after placing them in an Accumulator. The tumors, says
Reich, dissolved in an astonishingly short time. He says that the results were better than those he had obtained via injection
of highly charged bions.31 He then tested the hypothesis with human cancer patients who had come to him only as a last
resort, again obtaining positive results that confirmed his previous findings.32
Reich explained these results as follows: when a person is in an Accumulator that contains a concentration of orgone
energy, the energy fields of the Accumulator and that of the person mutually excite one another, resulting in an increase of
charge in the person. This, says Reich, can be verified in a number of ways, as a warming of the skin, increased
perspiration, a rosy color to the skin indicative of better circulation, a regular pulse, lower blood pressure (if previously high),
a rise in temperature of as much as one degree centigrade, and strengthening of the red blood cells.
This last observation, Reich says, was made on numerous occasions as a more positive reaction with respect to a test
Reich devised on the red blood cells, called the Reich Blood Test. A positive reaction to this test was characterized by cells
becoming more full and taut, more pulsating, wider with a glowing blue margin, able to retain their normal form for a much
longer period of time than previously, as well as other evidence of increased strength and vitality.33
Charging via the Accumulator, Reich hypothesized, blocked the cancer process by charging the red blood cells, which
charged the other body cells, making the tissues stronger, thus resistant to disintegration. Fewer T-bacilli formed to attack
other tissues and produce bions, thus preventing the formation of cancer cells. The bodys red blood cells, now stronger
orgonotically, killed T-bacilli in the blood, and the more highly charged body cells also had a killing effect on any cancer
cells present. This process, according to Reich, explained why tumors of his cancer patients disappeared when they used
the Accumulator.

Why Cancer Is So Hard to Cure

Though the results of Reichs experiments with cancer patients verified Reichs hypothesis, many of the patients were not
completely and finally cured of the disease. The patients had been given up as terminal cases by their physicians, yet their
tumors were destroyed, and their life functions increased. Nevertheless, as their tumors dissolved, an increase in the
number of T-bacilli occurred in their blood and lymphatic systems from dissolution of the tumors, and some patients could
not eliminate the T-bacilli sufficiently.
Furthermore, Reichs research into the cancer biopathy revealed it to be a consequence of a lifelong defense against
core impulses or the pulsation and flow of orgone energy. All their lives, people who develop cancer (and biopathies in
general) unconsciously prevent orgonotic charge and discharge via chronic muscular armoring. Without long-term therapy,
they tend to revert to their old ways, with their old mates, friends, and family in their old environment, which led to the
development of the biopathy in the first place.
By the time tumors have developed, the biological core, defined by Reich no longer simply in terms of the vegetative
ganglia but now as the sum of all plasmatic cell functions, has ceased producing the quantum of orgone energy produced
prior to the onset of the disease process.34 This constitutes a bioplasmatic shrinking and corresponds with Reichs findings
on a cellular level that weak red blood cells, cells in general, and bions become smaller and less taut when less charged.
Emotionally, this shrinking is experienced as characterological resignation. The organism becomes resigned because it
no longer is producing the energy to fight back, a finding of Reichs that confirms the direct connection between orgone
energy functions in the realm of the physical body and the emotions. It indicates that the physical and emotional realms are
aspects of a common third, the function of orgone energy pulsation.35 Armor, or that which inhibits such pulsation in people,
can thus result in more than false personality, or neurotic or psychotic symptoms, but in bioplasmatic shrinking, a process
that represents the premature dying of the person. Death, from the point of view of orgone energy functions, means failure of
the capacity of the cells to absorb and produce orgone energy.
Biopathies that interfere with full emotional experience represent premature atrophying or death of what Gurdjieff calls the
emotional center. Biopathies that affect thinkingsuch as thought disorders, psychoses, migraines, brain tumors, and so on
represent premature death of the thinking center, and biopathies that affect the motor and sensory functions represent
premature death of these centers. In this respect, Reichs research provides scientific confirmation of Gurdjieffs teaching that
in those in whom false personality and buffers dominatewhen false personality and buffers are viewed in terms of
armoringthe centers atrophy, and the organism prematurely dies in parts.

Notes
1. FO, pp. 292ff. See also CS, pp. 217ff; SW, p. 154; CB, pp. 151ff; SW, pp. 220ff.
2. SW, pp. 142ff.
3. Ibid., pp. 150-1.
4. CB, pp. 151-2.
5. Regarding these techniques, Reich says the study must be carried out in the living state at no less than 2000x.
6. See Chester M. Raphael, On the Air Germ Dogma, op. cit.
7. TBE, pp. 25-38.
8. Ibid., CB, pp. 31ff, 217ff.
9. Ibid., p. 218.
10. Ibid., p. 15.
11. Ibid., p. 220.
12. Ibid., p. 219.
13. Ibid., p. 224.
14. Ibid., pp. 225-6.
15. Ibid., p. 227.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., pp. 228-9.
18. Ibid., p. 229.
19. Ibid., p. 239.
20. Ibid., pp. 3ff, 255ff.
21. Ibid., p. 249.
22. Ibid., p. 283.
23. Ibid., p. 284.
24. Ibid., pp. 259-74.
25. Ibid., p. 284.
26. Ibid., p. 281.
27. Ibid., p. 285.
28. Ibid., p. 294.
29. Ibid., p. 296.
30. Ibid., pp. 41-4.
31.

See also Richard Blasband, MD, The Orgone Accumulator on the Treatment of Cancer in Mice, in JO, vol. 7, no. 1
(May 1973): pp. 81-4.

32. CB, pp. 320-400.

33.

See Chester M. Raphael, MD, Confirmation of Orgonotic (Reich) Test for Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer, OM, vol. 2, no.
1 (April 1956): pp. 36-41.

34.

See Helen M. MacDonald, PhD, Wilhelm Reichs Concept Cancer Biopathy, OEB, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 124-30. And
Simeon J. Tropp, MD, Orgone Therapy of an Early Breast Cancer, OEB, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 131-8. Also OEB, vol. 3, no. 2,
pp. 76-80; and JO, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 145-52.

35. This process may be directly related to AIDS. See JO, November 1988.

PART VI
The Food of Impressions and
the Crystallization of the
Higher-Being Bodies
Ess, bubala, ess!
(Eat, darling, eat!)
Yiddish Commandment

CHAPTER ONE
How Impressions Provide Energy
T

he research carried out by Reich and the teachings of Gurdjieff can now be brought together as we move toward an
understanding of how a healthy sexual life influences our attempts to awaken, to evolve in consciousness. As mentioned,
the process involves a subtle type of impressions that Gurdjieff claims can be brought into the organism by the higher
emotional center and the sex center. Before we can understand how this process works, however, we need to have an idea
of how impressions are brought into the organism at all, how they function as food and how they provide us with what all
food provides us withenergy. Once this has been explored, we can then inquire into the nature of the impressions of the
Higher Emotional Body. Finally, in part VII, we complete our study of how sexuality is related to creating the impressions
necessary for this body to form.

Digestion of Firstand Second-Being Food

How does food in general give us energy? Let us review Gurdjieffs model, one where an outside elementthe food
enters the organism and mixes and merges with something already within the organism. This merger causes the food to
become digested or assimilated into the organism and leads to the formation of energy that is finer in terms of density.
Physical food, for Gurdjieff, is our densest food energetically speaking. But we can digest it because we have within us the
digestive juices that break down the food into parts that can be handled by our organs of digestion. The juices can mix and
merge with ordinary food because they are at the same level of energetic density as ordinary physical food.
The process of digestion of ordinary food produces a finer form of energy that he calls cellular energy, which is the same
density as the second kind of food we take in, air, or second-being food. As we breathe, we bring in this second kind of
food, and it mixes and merges with cellular energy and continues the process of energy production and refinement to the
point where energy is produced for use by the entire lower story, the physical, emotional, and intellectual centers.1
Impressions, or third-being food, also mix and merge with something within the organism at its density and likewise
produces a finer form of energy. But to understand what energy third-being food or impressions mix with and what is
produced by their merger requires further analysis, for Gurdjieff is not explicit regarding this. Let us examine impressions
from the point of view of Reichs work.

Impressions as a Function of Mutual Excitation of Energy Fields

The human organism, structurally speaking, for Reich, is an extremely complex carrier of orgone energy, an evolved
elaboration of the bion or protozoa with a quantum of orgone energy and an energy metabolism; a fluid content; matter in the
form of bone, muscle, and tissue; a membraneor many membranes, for each organ and each cell of the human body has
its own membrane; and an orgone energy field. Within the membrane, the mass-free energy pulses and flows, expands and
contracts. Impressions, from this perspective, are a function of the outside stimuli as they affect the organs of perception and
the pulsation of orgone energy within the organism.
Clues as to how the purely energetic aspect works came from observation of the red blood cells of individuals who had
spent time in an Orgone Energy Accumulator. These observations indicated to Reich that the cells had become charged with
orgone energy directly from interaction of the orgone energy field of the individual with that of the Accumulator. Reichs
experiments provided evidence that red blood cells are charged directly from contact with oxygen molecules, which he
thought are carriers of orgone energy.2 He theorized that the red blood cells then charge the other cells of the body via
mutual excitation and lumination.
To endeavor to understand how mutual excitation of orgone energy fields function with impressions in providing us with
energy, let us begin by considering the most primitive life-form (strictly speaking, a transitionary form), the bion. Bions have
no visual apparatus, no auditory mechanism, no olfactory lobes, no nucleus, nerves, or brains of any kind, yet they have
been observed to respond to external stimuli. A bions sensory mechanism is simple: on Reichs theory, it senses the
external world via its orgone energy field, which expands when the external stimulus is pleasurable and contracts when it is
not.
Reich found that humans are also governed by orgone energy pulsation, have an orgone energy field, and take in
impressions via the field. He called this function our first sense and believed that impressions enter via this sense in the
same way as they do with bions, via expansion or contraction of the field.3 For Reich, when the field luminates or becomes
excited, the pulsation of the orgone energy within our bodies increases, since the field is an extension of the orgone energy
within the body. A more excited or luminated energy is an energy that is moving faster, is less dense, more motile. In
Gurdjieffs terms, it is a finer form of energy.
The contact of two organisms via mutual excitation of orgone energy fields is one way impressions occur. The field of
each organismbe it bion, protozoa, or humanis moved, quickens. And since the field is simply the outer expression of
the orgone energy within the organism and is in direct contact with it, the whole organism is moved, feels the contact, has, in
other words, an impression. For this to occur, from Gurdjieffs point of view, there must be a form of energy within the
organism that can be affected by the contact with the other. Adding Reich here: the energy within us is the orgone energy

within that can be moved, that can luminate when touched by the field of the other. Does this contact add anything to us?
Does it give us anything? It certainly moves us, stimulates us, makes us feel more active, more alive, more, in a word,
energetic. This is why impressions are seen in terms of food, for, like all food, impressions give us energy.

Impressions and the Sense Organs

Impressions are not only a function of the first sense, of course, but of the other more complex senses and organs as well;
thus a theory of how impressions become energy should explain how all impressions function as producers of energy.
Reichs research into how material structures like the complex sense organs and the other organs of the body are formed
helps with this. As we have seen, he found that orgone energy function precedes formation of material structure
(developmentally speaking), that the form or structure of living organisms, thus the complex sense organs and other organs
of the body, represent the movement of mass-free orgone energy frozen, stilled, or structuralized.
This means that, for example, with respect to the visual apparatus, the function of reacting to external light preceded
formation of the visual organs. The visual apparatus as a whole is an elaboration of an aboriginal orgone energy function
formed over eons as the orgone energy within the membrane became light sensitive and continued to expand and stretch
the membrane, slowly elaborating the structure we call the visual apparatus out of the membrane. What appears a stage in
such a process can be observed in the eyes situated at the front edge of the scallops shelllittle blue dots with apparent
primitive light sensitivity.
This theory makes functional sense in that it explains how a function evolves into a more complex version of itself from a
fundamental, primitive capacityin the case of vision, the capacity of orgone energy within membranes to luminate with
orgone energy outside that has reached the excitation level we call light. The theory also harmonizes with Gurdjieffs
teaching that everything existing is a function of the same prime-source substance at different levels of density. Light, for
Reich, is nothing but the luminescence of atmospheric orgone energy to a certain level. When we have impressions of light,
on this theory, it is a matter of mutual excitation of orgone outside and inside of the organism.
The same principle, on this theory, would hold for the other senses as well, since each sense organ is a structuralized
elaboration of the original mass-free orgone energy sensitivity to different frequencies or vibrations in the external orgone
energy ocean. Sense impressions, on this account, occur as a result of the merger or interaction of mass-free orgone energy
within and withouttheir mutual excitation, lumination, or love. The complex sensory apparatus evolve over eons as the
energy within expands and the membrane slowly develops more and more intricate structures with which to pick up the
impressions.
Organ sensitivity is seen here as a function of orgonotic sensitivity, both in terms of the mass-free energy that continues to
pulse and flow within the organism even after the organs have been formed and in terms of the structures themselves. The
structures with their parts, such as, with the visual apparatus, the rods, cones, optic nerve, and so on, according to Reich, are
forms of elaborated, condensed orgone energy (from which bion cultures could no doubt be obtained) that function via
sensory impulses or bioelectricity, which, for Reich, is also a specialized form of orgone energy.
The structure, on Reichs theory, functions not only via the parts, including nerve impulses, but also via the mass-free
energy within the organism. This implies that impairment of organ sensitivity can result from impairment of orgone energy
pulsation apart from any mechanical, structural dysfunction. When parts become diseased, the function of the organ, of
course, becomes impaired, an impairment that is orgonotic only in the sense that the parts are forms of structuralized orgone
energy. With respect to the mass-free energy, however, if its flow to the visual apparatus is sufficiently impeded by armoring,
this, too, would result in impairment of the function even if the parts were, mechanically speaking, in perfect working order.
Indirect evidence of this, it seems, exists. Cases of so-called hysterical blindness, deafness, memory loss, and so on,
where individuals become impaired in their sensory apparatus even when no mechanical reason can be found, appear, on
this theory, to be examples of how contraction of the mass-free energy influences the capacity to have sensory impressions.
This, of course, would have to be verified, but it is more than merely interesting that many of Freuds early cases were
diagnosed as hysteria where no structural malfunction could be found. Out of this work came the theory of blocked
Sexualstoffe, then blocked libido, and, finally, blocked orgone energy. There is also the subjective evidence of those who
have undergone armor dissolution and have personally witnessed an increase in organ sensitivity even with no apparent
change in the mechanical structure of their sense organs4although this is not to say that changes in mass-free functioning
may not also influence the structures themselves.

The Vivifyingness of Impressions

Gurdjieff says that when the centers work better or have more energy, impressions enter with greater vivifyingness.5 This
is explained via Reichs theory in that when more orgone energy is available for use by the sensory organseither as massfree orgone energy or in terms of healthy, vibrant nerve impulsesthe organs work better, and the impressions are more
vivid, more luminous.
This property of impressions is also, in part, a function of the liveliness of the external stimulus since impressions are
products of mutual excitation of world and organism. A majestic sunset, a beautiful mountain scene, and so on are usually
perceived as more stimulating than, let us say, row upon row of little boxes in suburbia. We usually love bright sunny days
because the external orgone energy ocean is vivid and expanded, whereas dark, dreary days usually depress us since the
atmosphere is contracted on such days.

On the other hand, we know that when we are depressed or in the wrong frame of mind, even the most expanded
external stimulus may not excite us, and when in a good frame of mind, we can enjoy nearly any external scene. Here we
again bear witness to the mutuality of world and organism. The greater the expandability of the orgone within the organism,
on Reichs theory, the more ready the organism is to luminate with the external orgone energy ocean and have
impressions of great vivifyingness.

The Impressions of Centers and Armoring

Each organ, brain, or center takes in impressions; thus we should try to account for emotional impressions, intellectual
impressions, and impressions of the higher centers via a theory of how impressions become energy. In terms of emotions,
Reich found that increases in orgonotic pulsation through breathing, sexual excitation, or in other ways increases the
intensity of the emotionsin Gurdjieffs terms, increases their vivifyingness.
Gurdjieff teaches that the organ of emotion, the emotional center, is located throughout the trunk of the body. This can
only refer to the vegetative center, the ganglia such as the solar plexus. (We know as well, from neurological research, that
parts of our head brain are involved in emotions, and centrally so.) It was Reich who first realized that the ganglia are
contractile. Later he discovered why: that they form from orgone energy, the essence of which is to pulsate, and continue to
function with mass-free orgone energy after they are formed.
When we are relatively free of armoring, our vegetative center is free to expand and contract, and our emotions are more
intenseboth emotions of pleasure, when the ganglia and mass-free energy stimulated by their pulsation expand, and
emotions of anxiety, when the ganglia and mass-free energy contract. Emotions are more vivid because, on Reichs theory,
the orgone energy is more excited and flows more fully throughout our bodies.
Gurdjieff teaches that the emotional center uses a finer form of energy when buffers have been destroyed than when
buffers are in place. When buffers are seen in terms of armor, this teaching is explained as a function of the energy
becoming more excitable when armor does not inhibit its pulsation. More excitable energy is energy that, in Gurdjieffs terms,
is less materially dense.
With respect to what Gurdjieff calls the thinking center, a similar analysis applies. On Reichs theory, this center,
localized in the cerebral cortex, formed from an original mass-free orgone energy function that, over time, became
elaborated as the brain. Once formed, it functions on the elaborated orgone energy of nerve impulses and on mass-free
orgone energy that continues to pulse within the organism. The vivifyingness of the impressions of thought depends, on this
account, not solely on the state of health of the structure, but also on the state of pulsation of the mass-free energy.
The more luminous the orgone energy within the brain, in other words, the more luminous, vivid, and vivified are the
thoughts. We see the light, have a bright idea, become enlightened, etc. These everyday sayings, on my understanding
of Reichs theory, should be understood literally as a function of the luminosity of the orgone energy functioning within the
brain.

Impressions, the Is, and Armoring

Buffers, says Gurdjieff, divide the organism, thus preventing centers from working together. When buffers are in place, our
impressions fall on only certain parts of centers and have less meaning, less food-energy value. In the language of Is, this
means that impressions are taken in by certain Is but are not noticed by others. The division can be so severe that we can
even fail to remember impressions of other Is.
This can be explained orgonotically in that armor literally divides the body into segments and inhibits the flow of the
energy from one segment to the other, an inhibition that limits the amount of energy available for use by the organs and
literally separates their functioning from one another. Armor in the trunk area, for example, can prevent the vegetative center
from making full contact with the brain. Ones emotions and thoughts and Is that are functions of these impressions then
remain out of contact with one another.

Inhibition of Breathing and Impressions

Armor also inhibits respiration, another way it functions to lower energy pulsation and the value of impressions as foodenergy. Breathing stimulates energy production by bringing in fresh second-being food or air, which stimulates increased
pulsation throughout the organism. We have seen that suppression of emotions is accomplished, in part, by holding of the
breath. The reason for this should now be clear: by holding the breath, we automatically inhibit energy intake and organ and
orgone energy pulsation, thus effectively inhibiting emotions, which are, for Reich, the subjective experience of the motion of
orgone energy within the body.
Originally, we are forced to do this because others react with hostility to free expression. We thereby please them by
holding back expressions considered bad. In so doing, however, we inhibit our breathing, and this lowers our energy level
and our ability to take in fine impressions. Societies that explicitly or implicitly demand inhibition of emotions, thus, by
necessity, inhibited respiration and limited the taking in of impressions, demand that its members live at a lower energy level
than is necessary for them, an influence Gurdjieff calls A influence, which keeps us in sleep.6
Societies demand such inhibition to keep people under control, but it is not the kind of control that is the goal of work on
ones self, in Gurdjieffs sense. Armor controls usin waking-sleep we are not in control but are controlled by our false

personality. The kind of control the Gurdjieff Work intends to help develop is that based on understanding, a product of full
use of the centers, full capacity to take in impressions of all sorts. This, of course, entails fully experiencing sensations,
thoughts, and feelingsof all kindsand implies an uninhibited sensual, emotional, and intellectual life. Such
understanding begins with taking in impressions of great vivifyingness, something that cannot occur with chronic muscular
armoring.

Notes
1 . ISM, 181ff; CF also John G. Bennett, Food (Sherbourne, Gloucestershire, G154 3DZ, England: Coombe Springs Press,
Sherbourne House).
2. See CB, p. 40; Contact with Space, op. cit., p. 148ff.
3. EGD, chapter 1 and passim.
4. See, for example, Orson Bean, Me and the Orgone (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1971), and the various case histories
reported in Reichs books and most recent journals listed in the bibliography.
5. BT, pp. 124, 139-40, 764, 850-1, 856, 886-7.
6. ISM, p. 199.

CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
The First Conscious Shock and Armor Dissolution

Let us now see if we can come to some understanding of what it might take to form, or crystallize, as Gurdjieff puts it, a
Higher Emotional Body. We have already indicated that it is a function of the Second Conscious Shock and that it involves a
very fine form of energy, at the energetic density level of sex energy. Before exploring this further, let us go back a bit and
discuss the First Conscious Shock, the prerequisite to the Second Conscious Shock, so to better prepare us for exploration
of the latter.
The First Conscious Shock means, for Gurdjieff, consistent practice of self-observation and self-remembering. This
functions to increase the vivifyingness of the impressions of the intellect and the emotions. Our analysis of how impressions
function as food indicates that the greater the pulsation and flow of orgone energy in the body, the more there will be energy
available to carry out such a practice. Since increased orgone energy pulsation is a function of dissolution of armoring or
destruction of buffers, the formation of a working Ian I that can consistently trigger the First Conscious Shockinvolves
elimination of some of the buffers or dissolution of some of the armoring. In this way more unbound, free energy becomes
available for self-observation and self-remembering, for the working I, and less identification takes place.
Armor dissolution or buffer destruction are, of course, gradual processes just as impression intensity is a matter of degree.
The capacity to trigger the First Conscious Shock, then, is also a matter of degree. The less chronic the armoring, the fewer
or weaker the buffers, the more unified the working I, the more intense or vivid the impressions of the self, the more valuable
the First Conscious Shock becomes in terms of fine-energy production and use. And when there is more of the finer energy
available, the higher centers and the sex center have more energy to carry out their work, since they utilize finer energies
than the emotional and intellectual centers.
Thus the First Conscious Shock prepares us for the Second Conscious Shock by producing energy of the requisite
density for the Second Conscious Shock to be triggered. This process is simply a continuation of the process of digestion or
assimilation of food, for each time food is taken in, it functions as a shock, a stimulus, a trigger for production of finer
energy, and enables even finer food to be taken in. The digestion of physical food allows for the digestion of air, and this
allows for the digestion of impressions. Self-observation and self-remembering, the First Conscious Shock, create even finer
energies and prepare us to take in an even finer food via the Second Conscious Shock. These shocks are called
conscious because they dont happen automatically as does the assimilation of physical food, air, and impressions that
require no self-observation or self-remembering to be ingested, impressions that are taken in, for the most part, in wakingsleep.

Higher-Being Bodies as Higher Organs

Higher-being bodies, for Gurdjieff, are created out of our essence. We are not born with them, but via working on
ourselves, we can crystallize them. We do this by using our centers to take in impressions and then produce within ourselves
the fine energy needed for these bodies, a process Gurdjieff calls transmutation.1 When a sufficient amount of the energy is
present in the body, the higher-being body, which is made of the energy, forms. I think of the higher-being bodies as organs,
brains, or centers but higher than even the higher centers. We are born with the higher centers but must create the higher
bodies. The Higher Emotional Body is the first body that we can create out of what we are given. Thus by working on
ourselves, from Gurdjieffs point of view, we can continue the process of creation begun, let us say, by the merger of our
parents egg and sperm. Out of the latter came our physical bodies with all of their organs, centers, brains. Out of our work
can come new bodies, new organs, that can take in impressions.
To call the higher bodies bodies indicates that they have a structure and a membrane of a kind, that they are distinct and
separated from other entities. To call them higher indicates that they can take in impressions of greater subtlety than the
other centers. Higher-being bodies, we can then speculate, are structures or crystallizations of highly excited, highly vivified,
highly luminated orgone energy that luminate with orgone energy at a higher frequency than the energy contacted by the
centers of the physical body.
Until weve crystallized a higher-being body, we apparently cannot verify its existence. To form such a body, thus to put
ones self in a position to verify its existence, would require, on our analysis, bringing ones orgone energy pulsation to the
required level of excitation in such a way that the organ or body would crystallize from this highly luminated energy. This,
apparently, is the function of the Second Conscious Shock.

Impressions of the Second Conscious Shock

The process of creating a higher-being body furthers an evolutionary movement that, for us, begins with our being born
as physical bodies and take in impressions. It is furthered as we begin conscious work, practicing self-observation and selfremembering. Each stage along the way mirrors the preceding one but at a higher level, which means that it uses finer
energy. Thus, as we have seen, impressions are a form of food, and self-remembering brings in a finer form of impressions:

when we remember ourselves, we gain an impression of the whole of ourselves. We feel ourselves as a unity, for, as
Ouspensky says, self-remembering is a feeling of the whole.
As has been mentioned, the Second Conscious Shock mirrors the first. It, too, involves a feeling of the whole, but as a
higher function than ordinary self-remembering, it involves a feeling-of-the-whole more profound, more subtle, and more
total than that triggered by the First Conscious Shock, with feelings described by Gurdjieff as, for example, the feeling of
religiousness, an awareness of the sacredness and divinity of everything existing. He says such impressions occur with the
awakening of conscience.2 We have already noted how Rodney Collin, a student of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, refers to such
impressions as expressive of ecstatic love,3 and Dhiravamsa, a contemporary Buddhist, who characterizes the highest
point of sexualityand we must remember that the impressions we are speaking of are said to be at the level of proper sex
energyas awareness of the very essence of the movement of the universe.4
Such a feeling of unity with the cosmos, we have already pointed out, appears akin to such experiences variously named
as satori, nirvana, samadhi, awakening the Atman, becoming the Christ, reaching a Higher Heaven, and so on in that these
are described in terms of unification or merger with the All, a loss of identification and separateness. Theoretically speaking,
the Second Conscious Shock brings in impressions, a feeling-of-the whole, like these.
Gurdjieff, as we have seen, teaches that sexuality, when it functions properly, utilizes the same energy as the higher
emotional center, that of the Second Conscious Shock, the experience said to bring in impressions of religiousness, of the
sacredness of everything existing, and the awakening of conscience. In this aspect of his teaching, we have already noted,
one can come to understand how the impressions of the Second Conscious Shock are not only more subtle and more
profound than those brought in by the other shocks, but also how they are more total. Such totality is directly related to the
totality of functioning of the sex center when it functions properly, which is to say, with Reich, to complete bioenergetic
merger in the genital embrace. What this means is the subject of part VII.

Notes
1. ISM, 192-3, 256.
2. BT, pp. 342-6, 623, and passim.
3. Rodney Collin, The Theory of Eternal Life (see bibliography), p. 98.
4. Dhiravamsa (see bibliography), p. 51.

PART VII
Sexuality and Evolution

In the Principle darkness concealed darkness;

Undifferentiated surge was this whole world.
The pregnant point covered by the form matrix,
From conscious fervor, mightily, brought forth the One.
In the Principle, thereupon, rose desire,
Which of consciousness was the primeval seed.
Rig-Veda, op. cit., pp. 24-6

Quarks . . . are notorious for traveling about in pairs consisting of a quark and an antiquark. The net result of such a union is
that the one quark neutralizes the others presence, much as a base neutralizes an acid, its chemical opposite.
Science News, vol. 123, no. 5 (January 29, 1983)

The role of the sex center in creating . . . a permanent center of gravity can be very big . . . if it uses its own energy, the sex
center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. This alone would indicate a comparatively high level of being.
P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 259

The preorgastic body movements and especially the orgastic convulsions represent extreme attempts of the mass-free
orgone of both organisms to fuse with each other, to reach into the other.
Wilhelm Reich, Cosmic Superimposition, p. 222

CHAPTER ONE
Sex Energy
Impressions of Healthy Sexuality

We are now ready to merge all that has been said about Gurdjieffs teachings and Reichs scientific theories to form as
complete a picture as we can of the relationship of sexuality to the evolution of consciousness. It is, of course, Gurdjieff that
presents us with the idea: when the sex center works properlyin other words, with its own energyit represents the chief
possibility of liberation, and liberation begins with creation of a Higher Emotional Body, the first of the higher-being bodies.
This body, he says, crystallizes or forms when the cells of the physical body become saturated with energy at the energetic
density of sex energy that has been transformed or transmuted. This same energetic density is said to be the energy of the
Second Conscious Shock, a shock that brings to the person a fine form of impressions. Thus the impressions of the Second
Conscious Shock function as the food-energy-matter of the Higher Emotional Body.
What are the impressions of healthy sexuality, of the sex center when it uses its own energy? As with all impressions, we
cannot know what they are like until we have them, and since the bulk of humanity suffers from orgastic impotence, the taste
of such impressions cannot be very well known. Most people experience sexual feelings, thus have some sexual
impressions, although, from both Reichs and Gurdjieffs perspectives, the impressions of sexuality when the sex center
does not function to capacity, when people are orgastically impotent, are very different than the impressions of sexuality
when it does function properly.
Can we at least gain a theoretical idea of what these impressions are like? We can, but, as I have said, we cannot
discover much from Gurdjieffs writings or from those of his students and followers. Nor can we gain much from other
sources, for very little research has ever been done on such impressions except for Reichs.
As we have seen, Reich learned that during the excitation phase, the mass-free energy within each person becomes
highly excited via mutual excitation or lumination. As the excitation continues to build, it begins to flow throughout each
person, coming in contact with the muscles, tissues, and cells. The energy itself, in fact, is the excess energy of the bodys
cells. Eventually the flowing energy excites the genitals, causing them to become turgid and to erect. After physical union of
the genital organs, the excitation eventually reaches a peak that triggers the orgasm reflex in which the bodies involuntarily
convulse in a unitary series of contractions, releasing the highly excited energy from each person into the other. At this
stage, the highly excited energy of the two persons (the open orgonomes) fuse or merge, and the two systems become one
pulsating mass-free orgone energy system. After merger at acme, excitation drops, and the energy flows back into the
individuals, and they feel a sense of deep gratification.
What impressions are triggered during this experience? What stands out immediately in the merger of the two energy
systems is an absence of the sense of self, a loss of all identification. In a complete merger of selves, there cannot be any
of the Is we normally are identified with, such as the roles we play and the various images we have of ourselves. There can
no longer be even any male and female, no more you and I, no more separateness, for you and I, male and female, have
become one.
Loss of identification means gaining impressions of unification. Such impressions enter during the complete genital
merger in a number of ways: as impressions of unification that occur as our own excited orgone energy flows throughout our
own body, unifying it during the charge phase; as impressions of unification that occur as our entire body convulses as a
whole in a unified orgasm reflex; and as impressions of unification that accrue to the bioenergetic merger of the two energy
systems.

Formation of the Higher Emotional Body

Given that the Higher Emotional Body is made of relatively fine energy or impressions, it could not be formed from the
relatively dense impressions associated with identification. Such impressions dominate our psychic life prior to consistent
practice of the First Conscious Shock. The impressions that make up the Higher Emotional Body must be finer and more
relational, and, in fact, those that enter during complete sexual merger are of the necessary type. They are impressions of
unification of oneself, of loss of identification, of unification with another, and of loss of self.
We experience, in other words, going out of our selves and merging with another, and this psychic experience is a
function of and is actually functionally identical with the merger of the physical orgone energy fields that occurs at acme. Our
field, remember, is in direct contact with our total body orgone, which, according to Reichs theory, literally passes through
every organ, every bone and tissue, every cell in our bodies. Thus, if Reich is correct, the experience of merger with another
passes through every organ, every bone and tissue, every cell. This, I take it, is one way to comprehend Gurdjieffs notion of
cellular saturation.
Because of such considerations, we can speculate that the cells of the physical body become saturated with the
impressions of unification, a form of relatively fine energy-matter. But just as one triggering of the First Conscious Shock is
not enough to establish the practice, one experience of complete bioenergetic merger would probably not lead to formation

of a Higher Emotional Body. What is probably needed is periodic experience. With periodic bioenergetic merger, the cells of
the body can be properly saturated with the impressions of unification, and when the cells become saturated to a certain
point, if Gurdjieff is correct, crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body occurs.

The Nature of Sex Energy

What prevent triggering of the Second Conscious Shock, for Gurdjieff, besides lack of knowledge of how to trigger it, are
the buffers. The buffers keep us from even recognizing that we are incomplete human beings, that there is somewhere to go,
something to develop, a need for the evolution of our consciousness. But as the buffers weaken, we become more unified,
and our sex center can work with more of its own energy. This implies, of course, that when buffers are in place, they prevent
the sex center from using the energetic density proper to it. The sex center is thus forced to utilize a denser form of energy.
In Reichs terms (and here we can see how much Reichs research adds to our understanding of what Gurdjieff simply
calls the proper working of the sex center), what prevents full lumination of the mass-free, excess cellular energy, its flow
throughout the body, a unified orgasm reflex, full discharge of the energy, and fusion or bioenergetic merger with another, is
the armoring. When armor is less rigid, the orgone energy can become more excited and can be properly released and
fused with that of another.
These considerations indicate that sex energy, as Gurdjieff conceives of it, is, in Reichs terms, orgone energy excited to
a certain degree, namely, to the degree that it luminates when two oppositely charged or highly attracted, relatively
unarmored people become sexually attracted. When buffered or armored people become sexually attracted, however, their
energy cannot become as excited and cannot flow as fully as when relatively unarmored people become sexually attracted,
a conclusion implied by Gurdjieffs teachingthat buffers prevent the sex center from utilizing the energetic density proper to
itand indicated by Reichs research.
Depending on the extent of the armoring or on the strength of the buffers and on the mutual excitation, more or less of
what Gurdjieff defines as sex energy can be produced. In Reichs terms, this means that, depending on the extent of the
armoring, more or less mass-free orgone energy can become fully luminated. When an insufficient amount of sex energy is
produced, for Gurdjieff, the sex center is forced to utilize energy coarser than it, energy that is properly utilized by the lower
emotions, the moving center, and the intellect. In Reichs terms, this is to say that it is possible for individuals to engage in
sexual intercourse without their orgone energy becoming fully luminated and without it fully flowing throughout their bodies.
This implies that sex energy, as Gurdjieff conceives of it, exists only in potential prior to sexual excitation and is created
when the energy present is excited to the requisite degree of vivifyingness. This explains Gurdjieffs teaching that buffers
prevent the sex center from utilizing sex energy, for when buffers are in place, the energy within the person cannot reach the
level of excitation Gurdjieff defines as sex energy, and the sex center is forced to use coarser energy.

Transmuted Sex Energy

In identifying Gurdjieffs concept of sex energy as orgone energy luminating to the level of vivifyingness it reaches when
two oppositely charged or highly attracted unarmored three-brained beings become sexually excited, we have come within
one step of comprehending, from a purely theoretical point of view, of course, how sexuality functions in formation of the
Higher Emotional Body. For sex energy to be created, buffers must be dissolved; for orgone energy to luminate and flow
fully, armor must be dissolved. When this is the case, on Reichs theory, the excess energy of all of the cells of the body
luminates and flows throughout the body. The bodys cells, therefore, are all involved in the flow of this highly luminated
energy, an involvement that, as mentioned, appears like the saturation Gurdjieff spoke of. This form of cellular involvement,
however, would not be the saturation required for crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body, for what is needed, according
to Gurdjieff, is saturation with transformed or transmuted sex energy, not the original sex energy present within the person
prior to triggering of the Second Conscious Shock.
Creation of what Gurdjieff calls sex energy, in other words, or mere charging of the body orgone, does not constitute the
Second Conscious Shock. This is to say that the impressions of unification that occur when all of the excess cellular energy
luminates and flows fully throughout the organism are not the impressions of the Second Conscious Shock but are
preliminary to it. They are impressions of unification of oneself and, as such, remain within the realm of self, within the
realm of identification as a separate, distinct entity. In that the impressions of the Second Conscious Shock are transformed
or transmuted sex energy, the impressions involve a complete loss of identification with ones self. In that such impressions
function as the energy-matter of the Higher Emotional Body, they involve a complete loss of identification with ones physical
body.
The requisite impressionsimpressions of complete loss of identification with oneselfoccur when the mass-free orgone
energy of two organisms fuse in bioenergetic merger, literally becoming one bioenergetic system. During fusion, the fused
energy flows throughout both organisms, involving every cell, which is to say the impressions that occur during fusion are
experienced by each individual. This movement of transformed sex energy, if it freely flows throughout each organism,
qualifies as the kind of cellular saturation Gurdjieff refers to.
After periodic experiences of this kind, the cells can apparently become saturated to the point at which crystallization of
the Higher Emotional Body can occur. Thus if Gurdjieffs teachings regarding formation of the Higher Emotional Body and
the proper working of the sex center are correct and the understanding of this function we have gained through Reichs
research is accurate, periodic complete bioenergetic merger in the genital embrace can provide the energy-matter-

impressions necessary for crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body to begin.

If Gurdjieffs concept of the formation of higher-being bodies is not meant literally but refers symbolically to a state of
psychological awareness only, then what has been said would apply solely to a level of awareness, or a kind of awareness,
produced by the merger of energy systems. To find out precisely what it means, I guess, well have to make the experiment.

CHAPTER TWO
Suppression of Sex
Early and Later Tantra

Over the centuries, seekers of truth and individuals who saw through the maze of armored civilization have no doubt
existed. According to Gurdjieff, most of the traditions that were built from their work, however, are forever lost to historical
investigation, and only a few of the individuals are remembered.1 One of Gurdjieffs most important contributions was his
attempt to discover and then communicate ideas and practices of such traditions and individuals that have not been
completely lost. Apart from his investigations, a number of ideas and practices that have reached us can be studied via the
literature and in other ways. Many of these traditions communicate the idea that evolution of consciousness takes the form of
the formation of entities very much like Gurdjieffs higher-being bodies, and many also recognize a fundamental relationship
between sexuality and the evolution of consciousness, although the nature of this relationship is not always clear and
remains in dispute.
Most esoteric literature available today, in fact, transmits the idea that natural genitality must be suppressed or
abandoned for the evolution of consciousness to occur, as a review of the literature will easily show. Generally speaking, the
claim is that spiritual development happens when sex energy is transmuted but that this cannot occur if the energy is
wasted in sexual intercourse.
Reichs work provides evidence that such a point of view is fundamentally misguided and, furthermore, that it has its
source in orgasm anxiety, rooted in chronic armoring. Gurdjieff, too, appears to disagree with such an attitude.
Apart from their work, recent research into the history of Tantra, a form of Yoga and Buddhist practice originally
developed, at the least, over a thousand years ago in India and Tibet, indicates that the idea that natural genitality must be
suppressed in the interest of the evolution of consciousness is a perversion of the original idea. The original idea was that
development of higher levels of consciousness could be accomplished via natural genitality in which lovers went all the way
to complete orgastic release and bioenergetic merger.2 The original practice, called the Left-handed Way, was referred to
as the supreme practice of obtaining enlightenment and was thought to be the most natural and efficient method for
transforming sex energy, an idea in accord with Gurdjieffs teaching that the sex center represents the chief possibility of
liberation. It was regarded as the Tantric practice, and one researcher, Agehananda Bharati, points out that what eventually
replaced it was considered not central by the original practitioners.3
On Bharatis investigations, it appears that the original practice was abandoned due to the pressures of sex-negative
culture, not to any perceived failure of the practice on the part of practitioners. Left-handed practice came to be regarded as
scandalous, and practitioners were ostracized and sometimes severely persecuted. It became impossible for them to choose
a mate at will, a difficulty that became insurmountable in that success via the practice necessitated that the lovers be of what
they understand to be the correct polarity for only then could the energy be sufficiently excited.
This lead, according to the research, to the necessity of changing the method to retention of sperm rather than surrender
to the orgasm reflex, a change that allowed adepts to save their sperm for what was now considered a higher purpose.
Such a change was apparently more acceptable to the culture at the time for the adept could claim he was not doing
anything immoral, not having any pleasure, but was instead inhibiting his pleasure for religious purposes. To further justify
this, various rituals and meditative exercises were included. That a simple, gratifying orgastic convulsion could be holy or
have spiritual implications apparently did not seem possible to the armored populace. The most ancient references to
Tantra, however, do not indicate the necessity of retaining sperm.4 Originally, says Bharati, nothing was held back.
Later, other practices developed. The original ingredients were replaced by substitutes, and evolution of consciousness
was viewed in terms of raising what was called kundalini up the susumna, or yogic duct from the base of the spinal
column through the thousand-petaled lotus thought to be at the top of the head.5 This form of Tantra was considered less
risky in that adepts were not persecuted as long as they avoided sex. A few courageous souls apparently continued to
practice in the original way but had to hide in the mountains and jungles of India and Tibet.6

Armoring and Control of Spontaneous Orgasm

If Bharatis findings are correct, it seems that the original practitioners believed that complete merger in the genital
embrace transforms sex energy into the fused energy necessary for spiritual evolution, although how much was known
theoretically and how well the function was carried out, of course, is impossible to say. The fact that the original practitioners
apparently sought sexual partners of opposite polarity is indicative of such an awareness in that we know from Reichs work
that genital characters naturally are attracted to individuals with whom they luminate strongly.
Attraction of polar opposites, in fact, appears a ubiquitous function in every realm of being: on the subatomic level, where
particles are apparently almost always found linked with their opposites, such as with quarks and antiquarks; in aesthetics,
where, as aestheticians say, complimentary colors, colors found at the opposite ends of the color spectrum, go together
best;7 in the chemical realm, where bases and acids, opposite chemically, neutralize one another; in magnetism, where

oppositely charged magnets attract one another; in electromagnetism, where the interaction of opposite charges produces
energy; within the plant kingdom, where male and female parts are attracted; and so on.
This does not mean that determining ones polar opposite is a simple matter. The concept, at this time, can only be
defined experientially and operationally: ones polar opposite is another to whom one is highly attracted, with whom one
luminates strongly. Need it be a person of the opposite gender? Decide for yourselves. Only each person can feel the
lumination, the excitation, of another person. Can we have more than one polar opposite? Again, its not for me to say.
Some may luminate with only one, others with many. And finally, what of the armoringdoes it not interfere with our
awareness and judgment of our polar opposite? No doubt. And this makes dealing with the concept even more difficult. Thus
until armor is eradicated as a cultural artifact in people or it can be measured objectively, our understanding of the nature of
our polar opposite must remain vague and function more as a pointer than a clearly defined principle.
On the understanding of how lumination occurs delineated here, once suitable mates of opposite polarity could not be
chosen at will and adepts had to take whatever lovers were available, lumination between lovers was probably less intense.
In Gurdjieffs terms, less sex energy was produced, and the Second Conscious Shock was less powerful, making the
impressions accompanying it less vivid. The cells of the lovers could not be properly saturated with energy of the right
density, and crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body could not occur.
Furthermore, once the practice of sexual contact plus retention of sperm was adopted, the orgasm reflex could not occur
spontaneously, at the peak of excitation, and the adepts were forced to inhibit the orgasm reflex since this is what is needed
in men, at least, to retain the sperm. This means development of chronic muscular armoring. But chronic contraction of the
body musculature stops the full pulsation and flow of mass-free orgone energy within the body and effectively inhibits the
possibility of full lumination.
And then there is the question of the women. To the original practitioners of Tantra, according to Bharati, women and men
equally participated in the practice and equally benefited from it. The practice of retention of sperm, however, was naturally
reserved for the men. The women became tools for the mens spiritual evolution, a practice in line with the advance of
patriarchal ideas over the centuries the world over.
Out of frustration with this method came the practice of trying to luminate the energy, now called kundalini, via
meditation and breathing exercises. For such a method to work, on the understanding developed here, it would have to
cause luminescence of the orgone within to the same degree as that caused by sexual attraction between oppositely
charged, unarmored organisms, a flow of this energy throughout the body, and merger of this energy with energy of equal
luminosity of another. That the practice apparently changed into one of focusing or forcing the energy in a narrow channel
instead of allowing it to circulate freely, however, indicates the existence and functioning of armoring, for the unarmored
organism has no need to focus the energy in this wayit luminates naturally and naturally circulates throughout the body.
Gurdjieff says that those who took on the practice of raising kundalini developed personalities characterized by cynicism
and viciousness, not by conscious love, and that they developed in physically grotesque ways as well.8 He says of kundalini
that it represents the power of fantasy, which takes the place of a real function,9 a statement that, seen in the context of his
other remarks regarding loss of the knowledge of how to properly transform sex-energy or exioehary, appears to be a
reference as to how this practice is distorted.10
That such a practice would have the consequences Gurdjieff implies is not surprising, given Reichs research into the
consequences of suppression of natural genitality, for such suppression, for whatever reason, results in severe armoring, the
ground of biopathic illness. When cellular waste builds up in the body due to chronic lack of discharge, what results is
negative emotion, more energy for armoring or buffers, and the possibility of development of the cancer biopathy (or other
biopathies). In Gurdjieffs terms, all of this represents involution to a lower level of being rather than evolution to a higher
one.11

Being-Partkdolg-Duty
I n Beelzebubs Tales, Gurdjieff tells of adepts who tried to patch together knowledge of the proper method for
transforming sex energy from fragments that had survived the cataclysm he calls the sinking of the continent Atlantis, an
indication (assuming the references are meant to be understood historically as well as psychologically) that Gurdjieff
believed that knowledge of proper transformation methods had, at one time, existed. These adepts, it is said, decided that
self-perfection could be achieved by nonejection of sperm but that only the second generation succeeded via the method
and that all future generations did not.12 Success via this method, says Beelzebub, was predicated on ceaseless practice of
conscious labors and intentional suffering, or being-Partkdolg-duty, a practice that, on our analysis, would have to
function to luminate the orgone energy within the practitioners to the required degree after which they would have to merge
with energy of equal luminosity from others.
Conscious labors, as I understand it, means taking on tasks with the aim of evolving and carrying them out with full
attentiveness, with, in other words, a fully unified organism in which all the centers function via the guidance of a healthy
working I. Intentional suffering means, I believe, accepting ones burdenssecond forceand giving up mechanical
suffering, or moaning and bitching about ones fate.13 We take up the practice of being-Partkdolg-duty, for example, when
learning to endure the negative manifestations of others toward ourselves without complaining, either outwardly or inwardly,
a task Beelzebub says was given to his disciples by the Buddha.14
Such a practice is clearly difficult and could result in illness if not practiced correctly if only because it appears to call for a

tremendous amount of self-control, which could easily be taken to mean suppression of sensations, feelings, and thoughts,
which could only be actualized via development of armoring. Gurdjieff implies that this is the case with most practitioners.15
When practiced correctly, however, the suffering of intentional suffering is not to be loved for its own sake but for the sake of
our aim to evolve. Our working I knows that the other Is moan and bitch or suffer mechanically, and the practice is aimed at
dissolving these Is while strengthening the working I.
As a chosen way, intentional suffering is not at all like mechanical sufferingit doesnt feel like it. The suffering or pain is
experienced, a function of orgonotic contraction, but the notion that the task producing it is chosen for a loved aim indicates
that the contraction is reversed by an expansion, for the memory of the aim that is loved causes an expansion of the orgone
since, for Reich, love is the expansion of orgone energy in the body. The practice is thus pulsational, like all natural
functions. When third force is taken from cultural or societal values (that, at least in the West, these days glorifies people
who can make as much money as possible while doing the least amount of work and does not look with favor on work
generally but prefers mindless play), the suffering is mechanical, which is to say that the contractive side predominates
because work is a pain. When it is taken from the Work, as the aim to awaken, the expansive side predominates. Such
practice can stimulate growth because it changes the direction of our responses to life from a tendency toward contraction as
we suffer mechanically to a tendency toward expansion as we suffer intentionally. As Reich has shown, growth per se,
including growth of consciousness, is a function of the tendency toward expansion of orgone energy within the body.
To become able to endure the negative manifestations of others without suffering mechanically, then, means to reverse
the automatic contraction, to take in the impressions of negativity with more than just the lower emotions and intellect, thus to
understand them. Such understanding results not in complaining or dislike but in loveconscious love or genuine beinglove, love based not on polarity or on compatibility of personalities but on consciously considering and feeling the position
of another.16

Evolution via Being-Partkdolg-Duty and

Orgastic Potency in Beelzebubs Tales
Let us take Gurdjieffs remarks in Beelzebubs Tales, that one generation of adepts was able to achieve self-perfection or
formation of a higher-being body via retention of sperm while practicing ceaseless being-Partkdolg-duty, literally for a
moment. This would mean that the practice could serve to luminate the orgone energy within the practitioner to the required
level, and the luminated energy of the individual could merge bioenergetically with that of the other practitioners apart from
merger in the genital embrace. Reichs research, of course, supplies no evidence for this possibility, but as we are here
taking Gurdjieffs teachings as seriously as Reichs research, we should attempt to account for what Gurdjieff says, at least
from a theoretical point of view.
For proper lumination to have occurred, on our analysis, the adepts must have been capable of allowing the orgone
energy within their bodies to pulsate and flow to the same extent as unarmored, oppositely charged lovers. But this entails
that the adepts were unarmored, for if an individual is armored, the armor binds the mass-free orgone, blocks its flow, and
prevents it from luminating fully.
An armored practitioner of being-Partkdolg-duty would find it impossible to raise the luminescence level to the required
degree, and armoring would prevent full discharge of the energy, thus merger with energy of others, formation of the
requisite impressions of unification, saturation of the cells with such energy, and crystallization of a Higher Emotional Body.
But to be unarmored, as we have seen, means to be orgastically potent. Thus for ceaseless practice of being-Partkdolg-duty
in combination with retention of sperm or inhibition of the orgasm reflex to have resulted in formation of a Higher Emotional
Body, the practitioners mentioned by Beelzebub had to have been orgastically potent prior to taking up the practice.
This conclusion is in accord with Gurdjieffs teaching that only individuals who have a properly working sex center can
achieve anything via the Work. If attempted without first developing an unarmored character structure, which entails, on
Reichs analysis, establishing orgastic potency, all that can result is sickness.

Sexual Abstinence
In the context of Gurdjieffs teaching regarding proper working of the sex center, one of his quoted remarks to the effect
that some would-be workers may have to practice sexual abstinence for a period of time appears paradoxical. He does not
say that abstinence is necessary for evolution but that it may be so for some types for transmutation to begin. For others, he
says abstinence is not at all necessary, for some that it develops by itself when transmutation beginswith such types he
says that transmutation takes the whole of the organisms energy and puts an end to normal sexual lifeand for others he
says that an increase in sexual activity is necessary.17 When abstinence is necessary, he says it is valuable only when it
occurs in all centers, that if there is abstinence only in the sex center but full liberty of imagination in the others, there could
be nothing worse. This requirement is obviously a key ingredient in the notion that for abstinent workers to evolve, their
practice of being-Partkdolg-duty must be ceaseless.
From my point of view, the key to understanding this teaching lies in the long-term worldwide prevalence of sex-negative
culture and its fruit, character armor and orgastic impotence. Because of this, nearly everyone reaches adulthood armored
and more or less orgastically impotent. Some character types utilize sex to prove their manhood or womanhood, to catch the
interest of others, and so on. They do so, in other words, for reasons that have nothing to do with essence excitation or love.

Since evolution is a function of full lumination of orgone energy, when people have sex without such lumination, the
possibility that transmutation of sex energy can even begin in them is vitiated, hence the need, for some, to abstain for a
period before returning to a life of natural genitality. With others, the possibility of a normal sex life may be impeded by
physical or cultural factors to the extent that the only avenue open to them is a form of monastic practice.

Notes
1. BT, 298ff, 329, 455, and passim.
2. See Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (New York: Garden City, Doubleday, 1970).
3. Ibid., p. 265.
4. Ibid., p. 236.
5. Ibid., p. 228.
6.

For contemporary examples of revised practice, see, for example, Lu Kuan Yu, Taoist Yoga (New York: Weiser, 1970);
Dhiravamsa, op. cit.; Richard Wilhelm, The Secret of the Golden Flower (see bibliography); Gopi Krishna, The Secret of
Yoga (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Omar Garrison, Tantra: The Yoga of Sex (New York: The Julian Press, 1971);
Robert K. Moffet, Tantric Sex (New York: Berkeley, 1974). For a recent discussion of some of the issues involved, see
Kiss of the Yogini by David Gordon White (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

7.

See for example, Stephen C. Pepper, Aesthetic Design, in John Hospers (ed.), Introductory Readings in Aesthetics
(New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 66-77.

8. BT, pp. 250, 808-10.

9. ISM, p. 220.
10. BT, pp. 806-9.
11. BT, 809-10 and passim.
12. BT, 806-8.
13. BT, pp. 104, 179, 243, 409, 738, 792.
14. Ibid., pp. 274, 372, 802.
15. Ibid., pp. 241-3.
16. Ibid., pp. 809-10.
17. Ibid., pp. 124, 357-8, 370, 1163.

CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
Loving One, Loving All

Throughout Beelzebubs Tales, Beelzebub condemns and chastises us for failing to practice being-Partkdolg-duty,
treating this failure as a sickness, as if the practice of conscious labor and intentional suffering is a natural, healthy function
of mature three-brained beings. Why, if natural, do we hate it? Why do we dislike a process required for evolution of our
being?
Our study of Reichs research provides an answer: We hate doing what is necessary for continued growth because when
we are infants, children, and adolescents, the very same function, as it pertained to us at those ages, was repressed. We
were made afraid of creative evolution, of the expansion of orgone energy within our bodies, and from this fear came the
armor. The armor makes us lazy, divides us into different Is, and prevents us from assimilating impressions related to
evolution. When such impressions are available, they fall on a divided, lazy, angry, resentful, frightened, suppressed, bored
organism, an organism still encumbered with childish desires that reject the ideas of the Work. The key element in this
process of suppression of the capacity to creatively evolve is suppression of the core function of creativity, the function that
serves as the central mechanism of creative evolution as such, on every plane of being, the function we call sexuality.
And yet, if our analysis is correct, reawakening of this function leads to the entrance of impressions via the Second
Conscious Shock, impressions that register on the higher emotional center, characterized by Gurdjieff as the feeling of
religiousness, of the sacredness or divinity of everything existing, and, at times, of remorse of conscience.1 This
characterization implies that such impressions involve a deep-seated love for all of being, a feeling so extraordinary and all
encompassing that we must wonder if it could be consistently felt by anyone other than a saint. How can we, who moan
about the weather, the neighbors, politicians, taxes, and on and on, feel such an all-abiding love? Some religions preach
such a message, although this does not entail that it is understood or that believers feel it.
We can think loving thoughts all we like. We can feel such feelings if and when they arise. But to feel them consistently, to
crystallize such feelings as the nucleus of a Higher Emotional Body (either literally or simply as a consistent psychological
state) is something else. An organism filled with unexpressed rage, sadness, longing, anxiety, and perverse sexual impulses
could not possibly feel such love with the whole of his or her being.
To be capable of reaching such a condition, it seems to me, is to be relatively unarmored and orgastically potent. In effect,
this entails learning to love one person fully before we can love all of being. It is easier to dream or fantasize about loving all
than to actually love onethe all is abstract, doesnt bitch at us when in a bad mood, become ill, or require loving care; and
it doesnt die. Loving the idea of all brings no heartache, requires no patience, no need to learn to endure negative
manifestations, or, in a word, brings no suffering.
Loving one implies bioenergetic merger, periodic surrender of ones identifications, dissolution of buffers. In learning to
love one, we prepare for a genuine love of all, for it opens us to the full pulsation and flow of orgone energy so that it can
saturate the cells of our centers with impressions of unification, the impressions upon which are built the feeling of
religiousness, of the sacredness of everything existing.
The idea that we should love one as well as all has been adopted by ordinary religion, but though the word is the same,
the meaning is often not. When I speak of love, I mean, with Reich, the capacity to merge bioenergetically with the loved one,
a merger that is sensual, emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or, in a word, complete. The love of most forms of religion,
Im afraid, is, in practice and in spite of what people say or would like it to be, often conditional love, incomplete love,
armored lovelove that leads to war. Such is the fruit and seed of sex-negative culture.

Helping God
An aspect of the impressions of the higher emotional center Gurdjieff speaks about is the feeling he calls feeling the
suffering of the Absolute.2 To feel this feeling, says Beelzebub, is to lighten the burden of the Absolute by reducing its
suffering, a suffering based on the need for the Absolute to feed on evolved souls so to overcome the ravages of what he
calls the merciless Heropass, or time. In feeling such a feeling and in evolving, we fulfill our natural function, for Gurdjieff,
which is to help God.
The various religions carry a message similar to this, but the message has been adulterated by the fruits of armor, for the
goal of serving the Lord has been opposed to full living in the body, a contradiction that, as Reich says, has turned clearminded lovers of life away from organized religion. And because of this adulteration, the message has actually been turned
from evolution up the Ray of Creation, up Jacobs Ladder, to involution down it. But this is precisely what happens,
according to Gurdjieff, when an ascending, antientropic process reaches a point where it requires further stimulus and does
not receive it.
If we follow the tenets of sex-negative religion or philosophy, genuine evolution is impossible, and God will not be helped,
for in order to do so, we must become well armored. Being armored, the energy within us will not be capable of full

luminescence, and merger and the impressions needed for evolution will not be produced. Sex-negative religion and
philosophy, in suppressing sexuality, has, I would guess, increased the suffering of the Absolute in that it has made it
impossible for would-be helpers of God to actually evolve. Gurdjieffs father had two sayings that make this point rather
succinctly: If the priest goes to the right, then the teacher must without fail turn to the left. If you wish to lose your faith, make
friends with the priest.3

The Secret
In characterizing the difference among the four ways of evolution that he discriminates, Gurdjieff says that one who
chooses the Fourth Way can evolve much more quickly than one who chooses one of the other ways, because the worker in
the Fourth Way learns a secret and via this secret can make a pill that, when swallowed, automatically leads to the
transmutation of emotions or the Second Conscious Shock.4 On our analysis of the function of complete bioenergetic merger
in the genital embracethat through this process the cells of the body become saturated with the requisite impressions for
crystallization of the Higher Emotional Bodythis function qualifies as the secret Gurdjieff speaks of so obliquely. Of the
four ways, that of the Fakir (overcoming physical pain), the Monk (overcoming emotional doubt), the Yogi (overcoming
intellectual wandering, control of thoughts), and the Householder (the Fourth Way), only the latter eschews suppression of
sexuality (although we do hear of some yogis indulging, dont we?).
That love is the secret, though not widely understood bioenergetically, has at least been noticed by some sincere
seekers of truth besides the ancient Tantrics. Rodney Collin, as mentioned, says that all that is needed to serve as the shock
that brings consciousness to the state where a higher-being body can form is ecstatic love.5 Dhiravamsa, also as
mentioned, speaks of the highest point of sexuality as revelatory of the very essence of the movement of the universe itself,6
which, on Reichs research, is literally true. Neither Collin nor Dhiravamsa, however, appear to have comprehended the full
significance of what they say. The latter goes on to say that seekers must, in the end, give up sex, although he provides no
justification for this claim.7
Whether or not abstinence can be used in the service of spiritual evolution, it cannot be the case that it must be. To say
that suppression of the sexual function is necessary is as absurd as to say that suppression of the pulmonary function, the
excretory function, the respiratory function, and so on is necessary for evolution (dont laugh; there are those who actually
believe this). Every essence function is needed, and the core of the teaching of the Work is that to evolve we must become
fully functioning, fully balanced beings. It seems more likely that the principle of abstinence is a product of armored
consciousness, desperate in its frustrated longing for freedom and release but denied them by circumstances, by what
Gurdjieff calls the Law of Accident and the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer.
Yet rejection of natural genitality remains at the core of most forms of esoteric teaching today. That the necessary energy
could be produced via healthy sexuality seems impossible, for where is the evidence? On the other hand, history is replete
with examples of those reputed to have achieved sainthood via celibacy. History, of course, is elusive. Are we aware of
every being who has ever transubstantiated a soul? Do we know for certain that no one has ever evolved and yet has
retained genital potency? In such ignorance, can we be sure that those who claim that spiritual growth requires denial of
genitality are correct?
Recent anthropological research has provided evidence that nonviolent, sex-positive partnership societies existed prior
to recorded history.8 Can we be sure, as some would have it, that such societies were societies of beasts or savages and
not of Women and Men? Should we, without evidence, assent to the views of sex-negative, armored humans toward the sexpositive? Reich has shown that the views of armored humanity cannot help but be distorted, for they are polluted with
unreleased, immobile orgone energy. This suggests that the armored could envision the unarmored in no other way than to
see them as less than human.
Unarmored views are rarely heard today, nor have they often been heard above the static of the armored. If we want to
know what relatively unarmored genitality means, we must work to become relatively unarmored ourselves, although those
who attempt it are necessarily charting unknown waters.9 The trip can be frightening because the free, spontaneous
movements of the orgastic convulsion and of life expressions generally terrify we who yet remain armored. One must,
nevertheless, push on and, as Gurdjieff puts it, discover America. And although culture and our own armoring will offer a
great deal of resistance, we are not without support. There is a great body of research and teachingto begin with, the
research of Wilhelm Reich and the teaching of G. I. Gurdjieffand for their contribution to the knowledge, being, and
understanding of lifes essence, we must be grateful for all eternity.

Notes
1. BT, pp. 76-7, 141, 342, 576, 623.
2. Ibid., pp. 373, 386, 802.
3. MWRM, pp. 46-7.
4. ISM, p. 50; VFRW, p. 204.
5. Rodney Collin, op. cit., p. 95.
6. Dhiravamsa, op. cit.
7. Ibid.
8. See for example, Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade (Harper & Row, 1988).
9. Help in melting armor is not easy to come by or to evaluate. There are orgone therapists that can be reached through the
Wilhelm Reich Museum, Rangely, Maine, and the College of Orgonomy, Princeton, New Jersey. There are practitioners
of various forms of what is sometimes called neo-Reichian therapies, including bioenergetics as developed by
Alexander Lowen, MD, and others (see, for example, Lowens Bioenergtics (New York: Coward, McCann &
Geoghegan, Inc., 1975). There are also individuals like myself who combine spiritual practice with ideas derived from
Reich. In each of these cases, of course, the seeker should not forget that famous bit of wisdom, Let the buyer beware,
for, as those who have completed this book no doubt realize, the ground is new and the voyage mysterious. Still, if we
keep our eyes open and follow the promptings of our hearts, our first sense, our intuition, and our reason, we might
find the rewards very great indeed.

ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
BT

Gurdjieff:

All and Everything: First Series, Beelzebubs Tales to His Grandson

MWRM

Gurdjieff:

Meetings with Remarkable Men

TS

Gurdjieff:

Life Is Real Only Then, When I Am

VFRW

Gurdjieff:

Views from the Real World

ISM

Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous

FW

Ouspensky: The Fourth Way

Nicoll:

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky

MM

Walker:

The Making of Man

ASGT

Walker:

A Study of Gurdjieffs Teachings

Freud

Freud:

Complete Psychological Works

RSF

Reich:

Reich Speaks of Freud

MPF

Reich:

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

OEB

Reich:

Orgone Energy Bulletin

EW

Reich:

Early Writings, vol. I

Reich:

Genitality

PIT

Reich:

People in Trouble

CA

Reich:

Character Analysis

FO

Reich:

The Function of the Orgasm

TMC

Reich:

The Murder of Christ

ICSM

Reich:

The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality

AOI

Reich:

Annals of the Orgone Institute

IC

Reich:

The Impulsive Character

LLM

Reich:

Listen Little Man!

CB

Reich:

The Cancer Biopathy

EGD

Reich:

Ether, God and Devil

CS

Reich:

Cosmic Superimposition

SW

Reich:

Selected Writings

TBE

Reich:

The Bion Experiments

OM

Reich:

Orgonomic Medicine

OIP

Reich:

Orgone Institute Press

SR

Reich:

The Sexual Revolution

BISA

Reich:

The Bioelectric Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gurdjieff
All and Everything: First Series, Beelzebubs Tales to His Grandson. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1964.
Meetings with Remarkable Men. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1969.
Life Is Real Only Then, When I Am. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.

Gurdjieff Talks
Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949 (contains mostly Gurdjieffs talks
plus Ouspenskys reactions).
Views from the Real World: Early Talks of Gurdjieff as Recollected by His Pupils. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973.

Books on Gurdjieffs Work and Life

Anderson, Margaret. The Unknowable Gurdjieff. New York: Weiser, 1962.
Bennett, J. G. Gurdjieff: Making a New World. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
____________. Is There Life on Earth? New York: Stonehill, 1973.
____________. Witness. Tucson: OEM Press, 1974.
____________. Transformation of Man Series: Gurdjieff Today. The Enneagram [And other titles]. Sherbourne, England:
Coombe Springs Press, 1974-7.
Butkovsky-Hewitt, Anna. With Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg and Paris. New York: Weiser, 1978.
Collin, Rodney. The Theory of Celestial Influence. New York: Weiser, 1975.
____________. The Theory of Eternal Life. New York: Weiser, 1974.
____________. The Theory of Conscious Harmony. London: Watkins, 1976.
De Hartman, Thomas. Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff. Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.
De Ropp, Robert S. The Master Game. New York: Dell, 1968.
____________. Church of the Earth. New York: Dell, 1968.
Friedlander, Ira, and Katherine Speeth. Gurdjieff: Seeker of Truth. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1980.
Lefort, Rafael. The Teachers of Gurdjieff. New York: Weiser, 1973.
Nicoll, Maurice. Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky (5 volumes). London:
Robinson and Watkins, 1970-2.

____________. Living Time. London: Watkins, 1976.

____________. The New Man. Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.
Nott, C. S. Teachings of Gurdjieff. New York: Weiser, 1962.
____________. Journey Through This World. New York: Weiser, 1969.
Orage, A. R. Psychological Exercise and Essays. New York: Weiser, 1930.
____________. Consciousness. New York: Weiser, 1974.
Ouspensky, P. D. The Fourth Way. New York: Vintage, 1971.
____________. The Psychology of Mans Possible Evolution. New York: A Bantam Book, 1968.
____________. Strange Life of Ivan Osokin. Baltimore: Penguin, 1971.
Peters, Fritz. Boyhood with Gurdjieff. Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.
____________. Gurdjieff Remembered.
____________. Balanced Man. London: Wildwood House, 1978.
Popoff, Irmis. Gurdjieff: His Work on Myself, with Others, for the Work. New York: Vantage, 1969.
____________. The Enneagrama of the Man of Unity. New York: Weiser, 1978.
Vaysse, Jean. Toward Awakening. San Francisco: Far West Undertakings, 1978.
Waldberg, Michael. Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.
Walker, Kenneth. The Making of Man. London: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1963.
____________. A Study of Gurdjieffs Teaching. New York: Weiser, 1974.
Webb, James. The Harmonious Circle. New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1980.
Welch, Louise. Orage with Gurdjieff in America. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
Welch, William J., MD. What Happened in Between. New York: George Braziller, 1972.
Wilson, Colin. The War Against Sleep. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: The Aquarian Press Limited, 1980.
Zuber, Rene. Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Reich

Reichs books, unless otherwise indicated, are published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux or one of their divisions. Most of
Reichs writings, including journal articles, are available through the Wilhelm Reich Museum. Write for a catalogue to: The
Wilhelm Reich Museum Bookstore, Orgonon, PO Box 687, Rangeley, ME 04970 (Phone: 207 864 3443).
The Murder of Christ. 1953.
Contact with Space. New York: Core Pilot Press, 1957 (available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum, Rangely, Maine).
Selected Writings. 1960.
The Function of the Orgasm. 1961
Listen Little Man! 1969
The Sexual Revolution. 1969.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism. 1970.
The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality. 1971.
The Cancer Biopathy. 1973.
Ether, God and Devil. Cosmic Superimposition. 1973.
The Impulsive Character and other Writings. New York: A Meridian Book, 1974.
Early Writings, Volume I. 1975.
People in Trouble. 1976.
Character Analysis. New York: Pocket Books, 1976 (published earlier by Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life. 1979.
Genitality. 1980.
The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety. 1982.
Sex-Pol: Essays, 1929-1943 Wilhelm Reich (Edited by Lee Baxandall). New York: Vintage, 1972.
Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals. 1994.

Books on Reichs Work and Life

Baker, Ellsworth. Man in the Trap. New York: Avon, 1967.
Bean, Orson. Me and the Orgone. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, 1971.

Boadella, David. Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of His Work. New York: Dell, 1973.
Eden, Jerome. Orgone Energy. New York: Exposition, 1972.
Greenfield, Jerome. Wilhelm Reich vs. the USA. New York: Norton, 1974.
Higgens, Mary and Chester M. Raphael, MD. Reich Speaks of Freud. New York: Noonday, 1967.
Placzek, Beverly R. (ed.). Record of a Friendship: The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A. S. Neill. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1981.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. Wilhelm Reich Misconstrued, Misesteemed: Critique of Man in the Trap. New York: Wilhelm Reich
Institute for Orgonomic Studies, 1970 (available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum).
____________. Some Questions and Answers about Orgone Therapy. Orgonon, Rangely, Maine: The Wilhelm Reich
Museum, 1977.
Reich, Ilse Ollendorf. Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography. New York: St. Martins, 1969.
Reich, Peter. A Book of Dreams. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, 1973.
Sharaf, Myron. Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. New York: St. Martins, 1983.
Wyckoff, James. Wilhelm Reich: Life Force Explorer. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, 1973.

Reichs Journals
International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone Research (IJSEOR), first published in 1942.
Orgone Energy Bulletin (OEB), first published in 1949. Available from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.
CORE (Cosmic Orgone Engineering), first published in 1954.
Orgonomic Medicine (OM), first published in 1955. Available at the Lane Medical Library, Stanford University Medical
Center, Stanford, CA, 94305.
Annals of the Orgone Institute (AOI), first published in 1947.
Orgonomic Functionalism, published by the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund (Orgonon, Box 687, Rangeley, Maine 04970;
new and currently available).

Orgone Therapy
Anderson, William. Orgone Therapy in Rheumatic Fever. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 71-73.
Baker, Elsworth F., MD. A Grave Therapeutic Problem. OEB, vol. 5, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 60-70.
Brenner, Kenneth M., MD. Medical Effects of Orgone Energy. OEB, vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 71-84.
Cott, Allan A., MD. Orgonomic Treatment of Icthysosis. OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 163-168.

Gold, Phillip, MD. Orgonotic Treatment in a Manic-Depressive Case. OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 167-180.
Hoppe, Walter, MD. My Experiences with the Orgone Accumulator. OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 12-22.
Levine, Emanuel, MD. Treatment of a Hypertensive Biopathy with the Orgone Energy Accumulator. OEB, vol. 3, no. 1,
January 1951, pp. 23-24.
Oiler, Charles I., MD. Orgone Therapy of Frigidity: A Case History. OEB, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1950, pp. 207-216.
Raknes, Ola, PhD. A Short Treatment with Orgone Therapy. OEB, vol. 2, no. 1, January 1950, pp. 22-31.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. Orgone Treatment during Labor. OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 90-98.
Silvert, Michael, MD. On the Medical Use of Orgone Energy. OEB, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 51-54.
Sobey, Victor M., MD. A Case of Rheumatoid Arthritis Treated with Orgone Energy. OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 64-69.
____________. Six Clinical Cases. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, January 1950, pp. 32-43.
____________. Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Orgone Energy. OM, vols. 1 and 2, November 1955, pp. 121132.
Wevrich, N., MD. Physical Orgone Therapy of Diabetes. OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 110-112.
Willie, James A., MD. The Schizophrenic Biopathy Part I: The BioEnergetic Basis for Auditory Hallucinations. OM, vol. 1, no.
1, June 1955, pp. 41-53.
____________. Orgonomic Therapy of the Ocular Segment. OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 51-63.

Secondary Drives
Reich, Wilhelm. Orgonomic Functionalism Part II. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 49-62 (especially pp. 59-61).

The Cancer Biopathy

MacDonald, Helen E., PhD. Wilhelm Reichs Concept, Cancer Biopathy. OEB, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1950, pp. 124-130.
Raphael, Chester M., MD, and Helen E. MacDonald, PhD. Orgonomic Diagnosis of Cancer Biopathy. OEB, vol. 4, no. 2,
April 1952, pp. 65-128. (Reprinted in a separate volume and available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum, Orgonon, Rangely,
Maine.)
Raphael, Chester M., MD. Confirmation of Orgonomic (Reich) Tests for Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer. OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April
1956, pp. 36-41.
Reich, Wilhelm. Cancer Cells in Experiment XX. OEB, vol. 3, no. 1, January 1951, pp. 1-3.
____________. The Leukemia Problem: Approach. OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 76-80.
Tropp, Simeon J., MD. Orgone Therapy of an Early Breast Cancer. OEB, vols. 2 and 3, July 1950, pp. 131-138.

Children and Child Rearing

Baker, Ellsworth, F., MD. The Concept of Self-Regulation in Child Rearing. OEB, vol. 1, no. 4, October 1949, pp. 160-4.

____________. Genital Anxiety in Nursing Mothers. OEB, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 19-31.
Mathews, Paul. On Adolescents in Public High Schools. OM, vol. 1, no. 2, November 1955, pp. 139-144.
Neill, A. S. Self-Regulation and the Outside World. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 68-70.
Ollendorf, Ilse. About Self-Regulation in a Healthy Child. AOI, no. 1, 1947.
Reich, Wilhelm. About Genital Self-Satisfaction in Children. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 63-67 (reprint).
____________. Children of the Future. OEB, vol. 2., no. 4, October 1950, pp. 194-206.
____________. Armoring in a Newborn Infant. OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 121-138.
____________. Adolescent Genital Misery. OM, vol. 1, no. 1, June 1955, pp. 65-72.
Sandel, Francine. Adolescents and Babies in Trouble. OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 42-50.
Saxe, Felicia. Armored Beings vs. the Healthy Child. AOI, no. 1, 1947.
Tyson, Elizabeth. The Armored Teacher. AOI, no. 1, 1947.

Orgone Energy Accumulator Confirmation Reports

Hoppe, Walter, in OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 12-22; in AOI, no. 1, 1947, pp. 73-81; in OEB, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 16-21.
Tropp, Simeon J., in OEB, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 100-9.

Atmospheric Orgone Energy, DOR, Cloud Busting

Atkin, R. H., mathematical physicist. A Space-Energy Continuum. OEB, vol. 4, no. 4, October 1952, pp. 197-206.
Baumann, Jacob. Some Observations of the Atmospheric Orgone Energy. OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 74-83.
Grossman, Werner. Observations of Orgone Energy Lumination. OEB, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 59-60.
Hamilton, A. E. A Childs Eye View of the Orgone Flow. OEB, vol. 4, no. 4, October 1952, pp. 215-16.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. DOR Sickness: A Review of Reichs Findings. OM, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1955, pp. 18-40.
Reich, Wilhelm. Cosmic Orgone Energy and Ether. OEB, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 143-159.
____________. Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes. OEB, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1950, pp. 184193. (This article presents evidence that confirms the relationship between water and orgone energy that Reich postulated.)
____________. The Storm of November 25th and 26th, 1950. OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 72-5.
____________. Dowsing as an Object of Orgonomic Research. OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 139-144.

____________. DOR Removal and Cloud Busting. OEB, vol. 4, no. 4, October 1952, pp. 171-182.
____________. The Blackening Rocks, Melanor. OEB, vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 28-59.
____________. Reemergence of Freuds Death-Instinct as DOR. OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 2-11.
____________. OROP DESERT. CORE, vol. 4, nos. 1-4, July 1954, pp. 1-139. (Contains a report of Reichs weathercontrol experiments in Rangely and Ellsworth, Maine, and Boston and Hancock, Massachusetts, 1952-53. The reports
continue in CORE, vol. 7, nos. 1-4, March and December 1955.)

Journal of Orgonomy Articles of Interest

The Journal of Orgonomy is published by Orgonomic Publications, Inc., PO Box 565, Ansonia Station, New York, NY, 10023.

Orgone Therapy
Dew, Robert A., MD. The Biopathic Diathesis. JO, vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 155-171. (Dews analysis continues
through vols. 3, no. 1; 4, no. 1 and no. 2; and vols. 6, 7, and 10.)
Nelson, Arthur. Ocular Segment Blocking and the Obsessive-Compulsive Character. Vol. 14, no. 1, May 1980, pp. 69-73.

The Cancer Biopathy

Blasband, Richard A., MD. The Orgone Energy Accumulator in the Treatment of Cancer in Mice. Vol. 7, no. 1, May 1973,
pp. 81-4.
____________. The Cancer Biopathy: A Case History. Vol. 9, no. 2, November 1975, pp. 145-52.

Adolescence
Eden, Jerome, MA. Do Not Disturb: The Emotional Plague in Education. Vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 188-208.
Raknes, Ola, PhD. Puberty and Its Educational Problems. Vol. 3, no. 1, March 1969, pp. 36-43.

The Orgone Energy Accumulator

Konia, Charles, MD. An Investigation of the Thermal Properties of the ORAC. Vol. 8, no. 1, May 1974, pp. 47-64. Continued
in vol. 12, no. 2, November 1978, pp. 244-52.

Atmospheric Orgone, DOR, Weather Operations

Deutsch, Benjamin, G., BA, and Peter S. DeCamp, MD. Rediscovering Melanor. Vol. 14, no. 2, November 1980, pp. 163170. Eden, Jerome, MA. Personal Experiences with Oranur. Vol. 5, no. 1, May 1971.
____________. UFOs, DOR, and Drought in the Northwest. Vol. 7, no. 2, November 1973, pp. 246-253.
Snyder, Charles. Energy Field Investigations. Vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 92-8.
CORE Progress Reports. Vols. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15.

Gravitation, Cosmic Superimposition, and the Pendulum

Baker, Courtney F., MD. The Pendulum Experiment. Vol. 11, no. 2, November 1977, pp. 176-187.
____________. The Perihelion Spiral. Vol. 12, no. 1, May 1978, pp. 55-63.
____________. The Spinning Wave, I. Vol. 13, no. 1 and II; vol. 3, no. 2.
Hale, Nathan Cabot. Orgonomic Morphology (Part I: The Galactic Superimposition Sequence). Vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 187-201.

Rosemblum, C. Frederick. The Gravitational Spinning Wave. Vol. 2, no. 1, March 1968, pp. 95-9.
____________. Mass and the Gravitational Function. Vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 210-14.
____________. The Red Shift. Vol. 4, no. 2, November 1970, pp. 183-91.

Plant Response to Orgone Energy

DeMeo, Jim, MA. Effects of Fluorescent Lights and Metal Boxes on Growing Plants. Vol. 9, no. 1, May 1975, pp. 62-8.
____________. See Sprouting Inside the Orgone Accumulator. Vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 253-58.
Lane, Loretta, MD. Effects of the ORAC on Growing Plants. Vol. 11, no. 1, May 1977, pp. 68-71.
See also Espanca, Jutta. Effects of Orgone on Plant Life. Offshoots of Orgonomy, no. 3, Autumn 1981, pp. 23-28. Offshoots
is published by Offshoots Publications, PO Box 1248, Grade Station, NY, NY, 10028.
Note: These days, of course, one can find any newly published literature online, and books and articles do keep coming, so
please do so if you are interested.

ENDNOTES
[1]*

Finer energy is used by higher functions. Thus higher, for Gurdjieff, means finer, energetically speaking, that is, less
dense. Higher does not mean better, for each density of the energy and the center or part of the center it feeds is
necessary for the overall functioning of the organism. Generally speaking, the lower centers use denser energy than the
higher centers, and the lower parts use relatively denser energy than the higher parts.

[2]

Gurdjieff calls his work The Fourth Way, distinguishing it from the first way or the Way of the Fakir; the way of the body;
the second way or the Way of the Monk, the way of the heart; the third way or the Way of the Yogi, the way of the mind.
The Fourth Way is called the Way of the Householder, a balanced way of all the centers carried out in the midst of
everyday life.

[3]

Reich began using the term T-bacilli instead of T-bodies at this point as he noted properties of the T-bodies reminiscent
of bacilli.

Table of Contents
Reich and Gurdjieff
Copyright 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902825
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-7257-1
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-7256-4
ISBN: Ebook
978-1-4568-7258-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This book was printed in the United States of America.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
CONTENTS
For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua,
whose warm light makes all he touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted
love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.
REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION
INTRODUCTION
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Waking Up
CHAPTER TWO
Etherokrilno
CHAPTER THREE
Some Symbols
CHAPTER FOUR
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
CHAPTER FIVE
The First and Second Conscious Shocks
CHAPTER SIX
Relativity
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
Gurdjieff on Sex
CHAPTER TWO
Orgastic Potency
CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
PART III

CHAPTER ONE
Explaining the Orgasm Function
CHAPTER TWO
Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy
CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
PART IV
CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reichs Theory of Cosmic Superimposition
CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
PART V
CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
PART VI
CHAPTER ONE
How Impressions Provide Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
PART VII
CHAPTER ONE
Sex Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Suppression of Sex
CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTES

Table of Contents
Reich and Gurdjieff
Copyright 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902825
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-7257-1
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-7256-4
ISBN: Ebook
978-1-4568-7258-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This book was printed in the United States of America.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
CONTENTS
For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua,
whose warm light makes all he touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted
love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.
REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION
INTRODUCTION
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Waking Up
CHAPTER TWO
Etherokrilno
CHAPTER THREE
Some Symbols
CHAPTER FOUR
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
CHAPTER FIVE
The First and Second Conscious Shocks
CHAPTER SIX
Relativity
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
Gurdjieff on Sex
CHAPTER TWO
Orgastic Potency
CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
PART III

CHAPTER ONE
Explaining the Orgasm Function
CHAPTER TWO
Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy
CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
PART IV
CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reichs Theory of Cosmic Superimposition
CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
PART V
CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
PART VI
CHAPTER ONE
How Impressions Provide Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
PART VII
CHAPTER ONE
Sex Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Suppression of Sex
CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTES